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The Confessions 

of 

Frederick the Great 

and 

The Life of 

Frederick the Great 

By 

Heinrich von Treitschke 

Now for the First Time Translated into English 

Edited, with a Topical and Historical Introduction 

by 

Douglas Sladen 

With a Foreword by 
Geo. Haven Putnam 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Cbe Ikntcfterbocfter ipress 

1915 






Copyright, igis 

BY 

G, P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



FEB 2 1915 

Vbe ftnfclietboclset press, t^ew ]|?ocfc 
©CI.Aan3585 



PREFACE 

THE origin of the gospel of inhumanity preached 
by von Bemhardi in his Germany and the 
Next War is to be found in the Confessions of 
Frederick the Great, which came into my hands 
accidentally a short time ago. The Rev. Graham 
McEhoy, whom I met at a friend's house, who 
had noticed the resemblance, lent me an eight- 
eenth century duodecimo containing an EngHsh 
translation of the first five " Mornings" of the Con- 
fessions, which up till then were unknown to me. 
And about the same time the editor of The Globe 
showed me the proof of an article which he had 
commissioned upon this book. It was a learned 
and intuitive paper, and a perusal of it and the 
book made me explore the subject at the British 
Museum. There I found the other two "Morn- 
ings," in another little eighteenth -century volume 
in their original French, and one of them, the 
highly important "Morning" which deals with 
Finance, had apparently never been translated 
into English on account of its banality. 

Banal it is, but it contributes not a little to prov- 
ing that the Confessions really were written by 
Frederick, for it sets forth, so naturally that one 
can almost hear Frederick saying the words, 



iv Preface 

his nostrums for improving the administration and 
the yield of the Prussian taxes. 

But intrinsic evidence is not necessary, for the 
manuscript of the Confessions in French has been 
preserved in Frederick's own handwriting, and if it 
were necessary, I have the opinion of the accom- 
plished French scholar to whom I sent, to be typed, 
my translation of "Mornings" VI. and VII. 
When I met her, I asked if she knew what she 
had been typing. "No," she replied, "and what 
is more, I cannot be certain whether the transla- 
tion is from the French or from the German" — the 
fact being that Frederick, writing in French, was 
unable to divest himself of Germanisms. 

Even had von Bemhardi not openly confessed, 
by allusion, his obligations to Frederick, no one who 
had read the two books could fail to perceive that 
the seed of Germany and the Next War is to be 
found in the extremely amusing and shameless 
Confessions of Frederick the Great. It is obvious 
in all its nakedness. 

And since von Bernhardi constantly admits his 
indebtedness to Treitschke, the historian of the 
Prussification of Germany, it seemed to me that 
I could offer no more interesting commentary on 
Frederick's Confessions than a translation of 
what Treitschke wrote about the great Frederick. 
This, like most of Treitschke's works, had never 
been translated into English. It proved very 
difficult to translate, and as my knowledge of Ger- 
man is slight, Miss Louise Scheerer made a literal 



Preface v 

translation of it, which I transposed, as far as I was 
able, into current phraseology. Mr. Sidney Whit- 
man, the learned author of our chief books about 
Bismarck, who is second to no EngHsh writer on 
contemporary Germany and Austria, had almost 
completed explaining the phrases which baffled us, 
when he introduced Dr. Oscar Levy, the editor of 
the great eighteen- volume translation of Nietzsche, 
and the chief authority on Nietzsche in Great 
Britain. Dr. Lev^^ has most generously gone 
through our entire translation to see that no 
mistranslations have crept in. 

It may be taken, therefore, that whatever the 
literary faults, due entirely to me, may be, the 
translation is accurate, a matter of immense 
importance where Treitschke, who is almost as 
difficult to translate as Carlyle would be, is 
concerned. Treitschke, Hke Carlyle, is a great 
word-coiner and word-joiner, and pours forth 
torrents of ideas. But he is not more reliable 
than Macaulay, for he generally applied a simi- 
larly encyclopaedic knowledge with the partisan- 
ship of an advocate rather than the justice of a 
judge. 

What sort of man Frederick was I shall endeav- 
our to show in an introduction more within the 
comprehension of a plain man than he would 
be Hkely to find Treitschke's pregnant analysis of 
Frederick's share in Prussification. 

I shall not detain the reader by specifying 
the actual passages in the Confessions which are 



vi Preface 

paralleled by von Bemhardi, but shall prefer to 
point out how Frederick's unblushing disciple has 
put into practice their Royal Larkinism, their 
gospel of Tuum est meum. 

D. S. 

London, December, 1914. 



FOREWORD 

THERE is a sharp conflict of opinion in regard 
to the causation of, or the responsibility 
for, the great struggle that is now desolating 
Europe and that has even extended to the further- 
most coast of Asia. It is my own opinion, an 
opinion which is I believe held by the great 
majority of Americans, that this conflict will go 
down to history as the war of German aggression. 
The war has been described as the natural ex- 
pression of what has come to be known as the 
HohenzoUem spirit and as the necessary result of 
the HohenzoUern poHcy. Berlin and London are 
at this time in accord on very few matters, but it 
is possible that this definition in regard to the 
inevitability of the European war imder the 
conditions existing would be accepted in both 
capitals. 

Those who are studying the war with reference 
to its causes and its probable results, and particu- 
larly those who are in the position of Americans 
and can investigate the war conditions without 
reference to the safety, or at least to the immediate 
safety, of their own homes, may naturally be 
interested, therefore, in tracing the history of 
what is called the HohenzoUem spirit and the 

vii 



viii Foreword 

development of this all-important HohenzoUern 
policy. 

The Hohenzollem family has shown a full 
measure of vitality and on the whole of persistence 
of purpose; but, like all historic families the record 
of which extends over centuries, its successive 
personalities have varied very greatly in individual 
force and in effectiveness, and also in the nature 
and extent of their contributions to the success of 
the family in the development of the realms over 
which they came to rule and in extending its 
influence upon the world outside of those realms. 

When, in the thirteenth century, Conrad of 
HohenzoUern, at that time Burggrave of Nurem- 
berg, directed his political ambitions toward 
North Germany, he doubtless indulged in the 
usual visions of personal glory for himself and 
for his family. He could hardly, however, have 
looked forward to the position that was to be 
secured, at the close of centuries of effort, by 
his HohenzoUern descendants. The first historic 
reference that we find to the HohenzoUerns is 
connected with the name of Tasselin, who was 
active in the time of Charlemagne, but the family 
of the ZoUern Castle comes into actual history 
only with the wanderjahr and the promotion of 
Burggrave Conrad. The beginning of the political 
power of the family may be said to date from 
1 568 when the duchy of Prussia was made heredi- 
tary in the House of HohenzoUern. It is the 
state developed from the duchy of Prussia that 



Foreword ix 

to-day dominates the Empire of Germany and 
that is fighting for the domination of Europe. 
The real founder of the kingdom of Prussia and of 
the Empire that has developed from that kingdom 
was not the first King, Frederick I, to whom the 
crown came in 1701, but his father the great 
Elector of Brandenburg. It was the Elector 
whose force of will and organizing capacity in- 
stituted what might be called the Prussian system, 
under which the resources of Brandenburg and 
Prussia were later made so wonderfully effective. 
The son of the Elector, the first King, did not 
impress himself upon the history of the time ; while 
the service of the grandson, Frederick William I, 
was rendered in the form of saving up the re- 
sources in men and in money which were to be 
utilized so effectively by his son Frederick II, 
known as Frederick the Great. 

The Confessions of Frederick were brought into 

t print in an English edition in the latter part of the 

^ eighteenth century, shortly after the death of the 

King. In the frank obliviousness of any moral 

responsibility for human, or at least for royal, 

action, they recall the famous letters written by 

* Lord Chesterfield for the guidance of his godson. 

There is, of course, a wide difference between 

the subjects considered by the two writers. The 

Englishman is giving counsel, based upon his own 

\ experience, for the success of his godson in social 

and political life, while the Prussian is impressing 

upon the young man who is to succeed him in the 



X Foreword 

control of the kingdom the principles and the 
policies by which such kingdom should be main- 
tained and developed. The letters are, however, 
curiously similar in their frank — one may say 
their naive — disregard of moral principle as hav- 
ing anything to do either with the Ufe of an 
English courtier or with the work of a Prussian 
King. 

With this utterance of King Frederick has been 
associated a biographical and critical study written 
by the historian Treitschke, who made himself the 
exponent of the HohenzoUern spirit. From these 
two works, so different in purpose and in character, 
the reader is able to secure a distinct and fairly 
complete picture of the nature, the methods, and 
the policy of Frederick the Great. He secures 
further an indication of the principles upon which 
Frederick's successor, William II, appears to have 
planned the policy of Germany with the purpose of 
shaping the destinies of Europe. In his Confes- 
sions, Frederick remarks that 

it is not to eminence in virtues that our family owes 
its aggrandizement. The greater part of our princes 
have been rather remarkable for misconduct, but it 
was chance and circumstances that have been of 
service. 

He complains that 

his kingdom is not well situated and that the different 
portions of the territory are not well arranged to each 



Foreword xi 

other. They are dispersed or divided in such manner 
that they cannot mutually assist each other. 

The series of wars waged by Frederick had for 
their purpose the correction of this troublesome 
irregularity of boundary; and he succeeded, 
through the appropriation from his neighbours of 
the pieces of territory needed, in rounding out the 
dominions of Prussia. 

The principles set forth by Frederick for the 
guidance of his nephew in the development of the 
Prussian realm, principles based upon the King's 
own experience, are affirmed in substance one 
hundred and fifty years later, in their philosophic 
relation, by Nietzsche, Says Nietzsche: 

A good war will sanctify any cause. . . . Active 
sympathy for the weak is more dangerous to the 
human race than any crime. ... At the bottom of 
all distinguished races, the beast of prey is not to be 
mistaken. To demand of strength that it should not 
assert itself as strength, that it should not be a will 
to oppression, a will to destruction, a will to domina- 
tion, that it should not be athirst for foes and opposi- 
tion and triumph, is precisely as senseless as to demand 
of weakness that it assert itself as strength. 

A writer in a recent number of the Unpopular 
Review points out that Frederick was no hypocrite. 

There never was a straighter monarch. He merely 
had the Prussian conscience. His suspicions of for- 
eign powers are facts to be acted on, and he feels 



xii Foreword 

that an act which in a foreign nation is that of a cut- 
throat is, when done in the behoof of Prussia, not only 
justified, but holy. 

(We may compare with this the "scrap of 
paper," and the havoc wrought in Belgium for 
holy ends.) 
The article in the Review says further: 

This kind of conscience is general in grim, martial, 
partially civilized nations which have been forged 
tough in the struggle for existence. Such peoples 
trust to their suspicions and their hates and they 
readily justify their own worst aggressions as simple 
anticipatory measures of self-defence. If such a na- 
tion can acquire the inventions and the resources of 
civilization without permitting civilization to abate 
these suspicions and hates, or impair the conviction 
that the nation can do no harm, such a nation will be 
more formidable in arms than any truly civilized 
state can hope to be. 

Frederick tells his nephew that "religion is 
absolutely necessary in the state," but goes on to 
say that "it would not be wise in a King to have 
any religion himself . ..." 

There is nothing [he says] that tyrannizes more 
over the head and heart than religion, because it 
neither agrees with our passions nor with those great 
political views by which a monarch ought to be 
guided. The true religion of a prince is his interest 
and his glory. 



Foreword xiii 

Under the heading of "Justice," Frederick 
emphasizes with his nephew that, 

we must do justice to all men, and especially to our 
own subjects when so doing would not overset or 
interfere with our own rights or wound our own 
authority. There ought to be no sort of equality 
between the right of the monarch and the right of the 
subject or slave. 

Under the heading of "Pohtics," he expresses 
the opinion that, 

to cheat or to deceive one's fellow-creatures is a mean 
and criminal action. . . . The term that has been in- 
vented to describe such action is Politics. ... I under- 
stand by this, dear nephew, that we are ever to try to 
cheat others. This is the way to secure the advantage, 
or, at least, to be on a footing with the rest of man- 
kind; for you may rest persuaded that all the states 
of the world run the same career. . . . Never be 
ashamed of making alliances, but do not commit the 
stupid fault of not abandoning these alliances when- 
ever it is to your interest so to do. . . . Stripping 
your neighbours is only to take away from them the 
means of doing an injury to yourself. 

In a later chapter on what might be called 
"Applied Politics, " the King tells the nephew that 
he "will not trouble him with" a demonstration of 
the validity of the pretensions under which Silesia 
had been seized, but that he had "taken care to 
have these duly estabHshed by his orators." "It 



xiv Foreword 

is good policy," continues Frederick, "to be 
always attempting something, and in any case to 
be perfectly persuaded that we have a right to 
everything that suits us." "To form alliances for 
one's advantage is a great maxim of state, and 
there are no powers that can excuse themselves 
for a neglect of this. . . ." It is evident, however, 
that "an alliance should be broken as soon as it 
becomes prejudicial. I have already, my dear 
nephew, told you that politics and villainy are 
almost synonymous terms." This is quite in Hne 
with the teachings of Chesterfield. 

When a stranger comes to your court, overwhelm 
him with civilities, and take pains to have him con- 
stantly near you. . . . This is the best way to keep 
concealed from him the defects of your government. 

One would suppose that in this counsel Frederick 
was foreshadowing the ingenious plan of his suc- 
cessor William II for the establishment of exchange 
professorships. 

Under the heading of "Military Counsel," 
in his account of the management of his army 
Frederick says: 

I ascertained who in the army were regular bandits. 
... I closed my eyes to the oppressions committed 
by the general officers. . . . They work for me in 
working for themselves. 

Visitors to Germany have been impressed, and 
particularly since 1871, with the general recogni- 



Foreword xv 

tion insisted upon by the military authorities, and 
accepted by the populace at large, of the superior- 
ity of the profession of arms. It is the belief of 
not a few friends of Germany that the dominating 
manner which actuates the army officers, and 
particularly those of Prussia, is not merely an 
annoyance to the civilians, but has proved a very 
bad training for the officers themselves, but this 
right to dominate has been insisted upon consist- 
ently in a long series of utterances of William II. 
In like manner Frederick says, "Always confer an 
air of superiority on the profession of arms. " 

A century and a half later, Nietzsche writes: 
" The future of German civilization rests on the 
sons of the Prussian officers." It is because this 
principle was accepted by Frederick and has been 
developed by Frederick's successors, that the word 
has gone forth to Germany and the world that 
the German officer was something sacrosanct, and 
that for the safety and the development of the 
state he must be permitted to dominate the 
civilian. He was to be accepted as an awe-inspir- 
ing representative of the Kaiser. Any temporary 
annoyance to the civilian population was to be 
fully atoned for later by the glorious success of 
''the Day." 

The Confessions close with a chapter having to 
do with "Finance," in which Frederick places 
before his nephew with considerable detail his 
principles of taxation and the methods under which 
he managed the resources of the realm. It is 



xvi Foreword 

evident from a study of these tables that the King 
was a wonderful organizer, and a good man of 
business. One may judge that he was a difficult 
bargainer to get the better of or to impose upon. 
It is probable that for the purpose of building 
up the realm of Prussia, a better instructor than 
Frederick could not have been found. It may be 
questioned to-day, however, whether the principles 
and policies which have been handed down to his 
successors by this the greatest of the Hohen- 
zoUerns may not in the end prove disastrous to 
Germany. 

Macaulay, analyzing the successive wars of 
annexation of Frederick, says that "his selfish 
rapacity gave the signal to his neighbours. . . . 
His example quieted their sense of shame." The 
historian proceeds : 

On the head of Frederick is to be placed all the 
blood which was shed in a war that raged during many 
years and in every quarter of the globe. . . . The 
evil produced by his wickedness was felt in lands where 
the name of Prussia was unknown; and in order that 
Frederick might rob a neighbour whom he had sworn 
to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coro- 
mandel and red men scalped each other by the Great 
Lakes of North America. 

The historian Treitschke on the other hand 
finds Frederick a hero after his own heart. He 
takes the same actions that had formed the text 
for Macaulay's excoriation and describes these in 



Foreword xvii 

such manner as to show that in his judgment they 
were necessary for the development of Prussia and 
of Germany, and for the proper carrying out of the 
destiny of the HohenzoUerns. Says Treitschke: 

Since the days of Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the 
Midnight Sun, Germany had had no picture of a hero 
to whom the entire nation could look up with awe. . . . 
Frederick strode through the middle of the Great 
Powers and forced the Germans to believe again in 
the wonder of heroism. . . . He was a German, and 
the mainspring in this mighty nature is the ruthless, 
terrible German directness. 

The historian remarks that 

not without arbitrariness Frederick arranged the facts 
of history according to a one-sided view, but one- 
sidedness, turned towards life and light, is, after all, 
the privilege of the creative genius. . . . 

And again : 

Frederick recognized that it had become a necessity 
to enlarge the territory of his state . . . and his policy 
was to lift the new German state into expansion and 
power through the frightfulness of its weapons. 

It may be noted that this term "frightfulness" has 
been utilized to-day in the instructions given to the 
generals who are occupying conquered territories 
in Belgium and in eastern France, as necessary 
for the terrorizing of the people. 



xviii Foreword 

Treitschke finds no ground for criticizing his 
hero "because no treaty or league could make him 
resign the right of deciding for himself, " that is to 
say, of selecting his own time for the breaking of 
his obligation. The historian points out, and with 
truth, that as early as 1756 Frederick had recog- 
nized that the continuing issue in Germany was 
whether it was to accept the supremacy of Prussia 
or of Austria. The question was decided for Ger- 
many a century later at Koniggratz by William I, 
Bismarck, and Moltke. The soldier, reading the 
account of the campaigns of the Seven Years' 
War, cannot withhold a full measure of admiration 
for the pluck, the persistence, the patience, and the 
genius which carried the little army intact through 
defeats, and through victories which were hardly 
less exhausting than defeats, and which saved the 
existence of the little kingdom; but the courage of 
the troops and the genius of their leader had, of 
course, nothing whatsoever to do with the morality 
of the cause for which they were fighting, a cause 
which for the larger portion of all the campaigns 
of Frederick was simply the appropriation of the 
territory of his neighbour. 

Treitschke writes in reference to the "educa- 
tional power of war" that the "alert self-reliance 
of the Prussians contrasted strongly with the in- 
offensive kindly modesty of the other Germans." 
The quality that Treitschke terms "self-reliance" 
has in later years been described by those less 
sympathetic with the Prussian spirit as self- 



Foreword xix 

sufficiency or dominating arrogance. The truth 
of either definition depends, of course, upon the 
point of view. 

Treitschke says, naively, 

that there then dawned upon Frederick the idea of the 
partition of Poland. It was his purpose to combat 
the grabbing land-greed of Russia. . . . The Poles 
were, in any case, deserving of no sympathy, for [says 
Treitschke] they were distinguished above all the na- 
tions of Europe by an insolent disregard of the rights 
and the nationalities of others. 

In Treitschke's reference to the organization 
given by Frederick to his army, he refers to the 
decision to place the officers' commissions ex- 
clusively in the hands of the nobility. He goes on 
to say: 

In the noble officers' corps there arose an aristocratic 
arrogance (Junkersinn) , which soon became more 
intolerable to the people than the coarse roughness of 
earlier times. 

It is the belief of many that this characteristic 
of the corps of noble Prussian officers is stronger 
and more troublesome in the twentieth century 
than it was in the eighteenth. 

Treitschke writes with full approval of Freder- 
ick's upholding of Christian toleration. He cites 
this as an old Prussian policy, and quotes Freder- 
ick's own words, " the people's conceptions of God 



XX Foreword 

and godly things cannot be made subject to a 
coercive law." 

The defenders of the war policy of Germany of 
to-day contend that undue weight has been given 
to the utterances of the historian Treitschke, of the 
military scientist Bernhardi, and of the philosopher 
Nietzsche. When, however, it is possible to make 
clear that the germ of the teachings of historian, 
philosopher, and militarist is to be found in the 
recorded utterances of the greatest of the Hohen- 
zoUems, and when the HohenzoUem of to-day 
says frankly that he is doing what he can to carry 
out the ideals of the King who made Prussia a 
European power, it is not inaccurate to contend 
that the spirit and principles of Frederick, Treitsch- 
ke, Nietzsche, and Bernhardi are expressed by 
the policies and enforced by the military power of 
William II. 

Frederick did not dread the antagonism of his 
neighbours and had no fear of their criticism. He 
was prepared to realize that he could hardly expect 
friendliness of feeling from the states whose terri- 
tory had been despoiled to make Prussia greater. 
The defenders of the policy of Kaiser William II 
point out that Germany is surrounded by a "steel 
ring of enemies," states which are opposed to her 
natural development. Every nation is, of neces- 
sity, in touch with neighbouring nations; and 
whether these nations are to hold one of their 
neighbours in friendship or in enmity depends, of 
course, largely, if not chiefly, upon her own 



Foreword xxi 

conduct and upon her observance in international 
relations of the principles of justice or of fair 
consideration. It is difficult to imagine that 
Germany should expect sympathetic friendship 
from Denmark (one third of whose territory had 
been snatched from her in 1864), or from France 
after the appropriation of Alsace-Lorraine and the 
institution in old French Lorraine of the great 
fortress of Metz threatening as it were with a 
mailed fist the heart of France. If Germany 
succeeds in the present struggle so that the 
annexation of Belgium as a province of the 
Empire {Reichsland) may be confirmed, it is 
hardly to be expected that for generations to 
come the Belgians, devastated by ruthless in- 
vasion and by the official burning of their cities, 
left in starvation through the appropriation of 
their food supplies, and crushed with heavy 
indemnities, some of which were imposed even 
after the territory had in form become a part 
of the German Empire, can regard with affec- 
tion or with a feeling of loyal relation, their new 
rulers. 

The reign of Frederick is a great example of 
the results of doctrines of efficiency carried to 
the nth. power without scruples or limitations, or 
consideration for the rights of others. It is this 
Hohenzollern ideal of efficiency which has pro- 
duced the finest fighting machine that the world 
has ever seen, and which has placed back of that 
machine the magnificently organized resources of 



xxii Foreword 

a great Empire. It is for Europe to decide 
whether it will permit itself to be dominated by 
the ideals, the policy, and the methods of the 
Hohenzollerns 

Geo. Haven Putnam. 

New York, January, 191 5. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword . . . . . . . iii 

Preface ....... xix 

Introduction i 

Morning the First: 

ORIGIN OF our family .... 35 

the situation of my kingdom . . . 37 

OF the soil of my TERRITORIES . . 38 

of the manners of the inhabitants , 38 
Morning the Second: 

ON religion ...... 40 

Morning the Third: 

on justice . ... -49 

Morning the Fourth: 

ON politics 54 

on private politics .... 55 

on literature ..... 59 

conduct in the smaller matters of life 61 

as to dress ...... 62 

as to pleasures 63 



xxiv Contents 

PAGE 

Morning the Fifth: 

on politics of the state ... 66 

principle the first — of self-preserva- 
tion and aggrandizement , . 66 

principle the second — on alliances . 69 

principle the third — of inspiring 
respect and fear . . . -71 

Morning the Sixth: 

military 74 

Morning the Seventh: 

concerning finance . . . . 93 

the memorial of the council . . 94 

subsidies ...... 98 

memorandum ..... 99 

the reply of the province of magde- 
BURG lOI 

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BURGOMASTERS OF 

MAGDEBURG IO3 

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BURGOMASTERS OF 

VILLAGES ...... 105 

METHOD OF WORKING . . . , IO6 

MEMORANDUM SENT TO THE PROVINCE OF 

MINDEN ...... 107 

TOBACCO ...... 108 

FORESTRY . . . . . . IO9 



Contents xxv 

PAGE 

PROVINCE OF MINDEN — REPORT SENT TO 

THE COUNCIL BY THE SURVEYOR . . IIO 

MEMORANDUM OF THE POSTAL SERVICE TO 

THE KING . . . . . • ir4 

POST-HOUSES 115 

STAMP OFFICE AND REGISTRATION OF DEEDS 1 1 7 

CUSTOMS-DUTY ON FOREIGN GOODS . . II9 

OCTROI DUTIES IN THE TOWNS . .120 

ARMY 123 

Life of Frederick the Great . . . 129 
By Heinrich von Treitschke 



Introduction 



INTRODUCTION 

CARLYLE'S million words about Frederick the 
Great are too tedious for this impatient 
century, and, though there is an admirable life of 
Frederick by Mr. W. F. Reddaway in the Heroes 
of the Nations series, comparatively few English 
people are acquainted with the great King's 
frank effrontery and biting mother- wit, which are 
so conspicuous in his Confessions. Here are a 
few of the flowers which Mr. Reddaway has 
gathered. 

His father made him marry Elizabeth of Bruns- 
wick-Bevern. Frederick's comment was : 

When all is said and done, there will be one more 
unhappy princess in the world. [Twice he declared:] 
I shall put her away as soon as I am master. Am I 
of the wood out of which they carve good husbands? 
I love the fair sex, my love is very inconstant; I 
am for enjoyment, afterwards I despise it. I will keep 
my word, I will marry, but that is enough; Bon jour ^ 
Madame, et hen chemin. 



Good counsel does not come from a great number 
[was his maxim]. Newton could not have discovered 

3 



4 Introduction 

the law of gravitation if he had been collaborating 
with Leibnitz and Descartes. 



After a sweeping measure of confiscation, which 
compelled the clergy to practise apostolic poverty, 
he wrote to Voltaire: "We free them from the 
cares of this world so that they may labour without 
distraction to win the heavenly Jerusalem which 
is their true home." 

"I know very well," wrote Frederick to his 
brother. Prince Henry, as another King of Prussia 
might very well be imagined writing to another 
brother Henry, "that it is only our interest which 
makes it our duty to act at this moment, but we 
must be very careful not to say so. " 

And to that same brother he wrote : 

I, who am already more than half beyond this world, 
am forced to double my wisdom and activity, and 
continually keep in my head the detestable plans that 
this cursed Joseph begets afresh with every fresh day. 
I am condemned to enjoy no rest before my bones are 
covered with a little earth. 

"If there is anything to be gained by being 
honest, let us be honest ; if it is necessary to deceive, 
let us deceive." 

That was the Frederick who wrote the Con- 



Introduction 5 

fessions which were first published in his lifetime 
in 1 766, and never disowned by him. The nephew 
to whom he wrote was his successor. He tells his 
descent in the first " Morning." He was only the ' 
third King of Prussia, that monarchy having been 
established at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, thirty-nine years before his accession, 
and when he came to the throne Prussia included 
neither Silesia nor West Prussia nor East Friesland. 
But he inherited what was of more value in the 
hands of a monarch with a mediaeval conscience — 
namely, an overflowing treasury and an army of 
eighty-five thousand men, of whom the infantry, 
at any rate, were the best drilled in Europe, though 
his cavalry lacked the dash of the Austrian cav- 
alry, and he could not afford decent artillery and 
engineers. 

His father, Frederick William I, was a most 
imlovable man; he was a bully in his own home, 
a bully to his subjects, and as cowardly as a bully 
to his enemies. Though he had the best army in 
Europe, he was afraid to fight ; he coiild only snarl 
and show his teeth when his kingdom was threat- 
ened, except where his avarice was touched, as 
when Charles XII of Sweden refused to pay him 
his bill for holding Stettin. This was more than 
he could stand, and in the joint attack on Sweden 
which followed, he secured spoils of great value, 
the mouths of the Oder. Treitschke has recorded 
in this volume what the Austrians said about 
Frederick William. 



6 Introduction 

History has many unlovely things to record of 
Frederick William I, who was so miserly that the 
whole government of Prussia cost only fifty-five 
thousand a year, and the whole royal expenses less 
than eight thousand. His treatment of his eldest 
son — Frederick the Great, who might have been 
more like Alexander the Great if his father had been 
more like Alexander's father, Philip of Macedon, 
was stupid and abominable. The comparison is 
irresistible, for Philip, the rough northern neigh- 
bour of Athens, laid the foundation of his son's 
conquests, just as Frederick William, the rough 
northern neighbour of the Empire, laid the 
foundations of the conquests of Frederick the 
Great. 

And here I must define the expressions "the 
Empire " and " German, " which will come so often 
into these pages. It is incorrect to call it the 
"German Empire." There never was a German 
Emperor actually so-called until WilHam the First 
was crowned at Versailles, less than half a century 
ago. Maria Theresa's father and husband, who 
come into these pages, were Holy Roman Emper- 
ors, the successors of the Emperors of the West, 
who in their turn had succeeded to the western 
half of the Empire founded by Augustus. And 
until Maria Theresa's father died, the Emperors 
for more than three hundred years in tmbroken 
succession had been elected from the House of 
Habsburg, who ruled the Austrian monarchy. 

As Emperors, the Holy Roman Emperors, even 



Introduction 7 

Charles the Fifth, had no dominions. They were 
merely the elected heads of the Holy Roman 
Empire, which was, in fact, a loose confederation 
of German electors and minor princes. But the 
Empire had so long been identified with the Aus- 
trian House that the hereditary Austrian domin- 
ions became confused with it. 

This arrangement seemed likely to go on for 
ever, when Prussia, representing the Electorate of 
Brandenburg, interfered to get a Bavarian chosen 
to replace Maria Theresa's father; but, in point of 
fact, in 1806 the I.'^oly Roman Emperor changed his 
title to Emperor of Austria, on the groimd that 
the Holy Roman Empire was no longer either 
Holy, Roman, or an Empire. 

Prussia was one of the States of the Empire, 
and up to the period of Frederick certain Prussian 
law-cases could be carried to the Imperial Courts. 
It was once suggested to Frederick the Great 
(perhaps prompted d, la Cccsar) that he should have 
himself elected Emperor, but he dismissed the 
suggestion with characteristic cynicisms about 
the poverty of Prussia and the jealousy which it 
would provoke from the other States. The 
Empire was usually referred to as the Holy Empire 
and the word German was not used to signify a 
person of Teutonic race, but a member of some 
State included in the Holy Empire. 

The great Frederick was born with humanistic 
ideas uppermost; he took up military studies to 
escape some of the awful bullying inflicted on him 



8 Introduction 

by his father, who hated him so that he tried to 
persecute the unhappy child into his grave. Only 
the creator of "Oliver Twist" could adequately 
describe the boyhood of Frederick the Great. 
Frederick had to do so many things to deceive 
his father that everyone thought that his interest 
and apparent progress in military studies were 
only clever pieces of acting. "I have just drilled, 
I drill, I shall drill, " he wrote. 

So cruel was the father, that the son at the age 
of eighteen attempted to flee from Prussia with 
his "chum" and confidant, the youthful Katte. 
They were arrested and flimg into prison, and 
charged with high treason as military officers 
who had deserted. Katte, in spite of his acquittal 
by the court-martial appointed to try him, was 
executed — a refinement of cruelty — before his 
friend's eyes. Frederick, who had begged to die 
in Katte's place, fainted with anguish, and would 
have shared his fate but for the remonstrances of 
the Emperor. The ambassadors of other sover- 
eigns joined in the protest, but probably weighed 
nothing in comparison. 

Frederick William only listened to the Emperor 
as his technical lord, from whom he lacked the 
military courage to declare himself free. He 
pursued his revenge in various ways. When he 
was tired of treating his son as a convict, he made 
him marry a woman he did not like, the same 
woman who was giving a party at Schonhausen 
while Frederick was dying. How Frederick dreaded 



Introduction 9 

his father is proved by an anecdote told by Mr. 
Reddaway. "It was Hke a foretaste of death," 
he said, "when a hussar appeared to command his 
presence at Berlin. " 

I do not know whether to regard the letter which 
Frederick wrote to express his submission to his 
father as the bottom rung of sycophancy or as 
a masterpiece of irony and treachery interblent. 
I give Carlyle's translation: 

"CusTRiN, 19th November, 1730. 

"All-Serenest and All-graciousest Father, — 

" To your Royal Majesty, my All-graciousest 
Father, have" (i.e., "1 have," if one durst write the 
"I" — Carlyle), "by my disobedience as Theiro" 
(Youro) "subject and soldier, not less than by my 
undutifulness as Theiro Son, given occasion to a just 
wrath and aversion against me. With the All-obed- 
ientest respect I submit myself wholly to the grace of 
my most All-gracious Father; and beg him. Most 
Ail-graciously to pardon me; as it is not so much the 
withdrawal of my liberty in a sad arrest (malheureusen 
Arrest), as my own thoughts of the fault I have com- 
mitted, that have brought me to reason: Who, with 
all-obedientest respect and submission, continue till 
my end, 

"My All-graciousest King's and Father's faithfully 
obedientest 

"Servant and Son," 

"Friedrich." 

But for his father's cruelty Frederick might 
have borne one of the most honoured names in 



10 Introduction 

history, instead of fouling his greatness as a 
conqueror, and his goodness as a father of his 
country, by reducing to a system for Prussia the 
treachery and statecraft of Caesar Borgia. For it 
was Frederick the Great who founded the Borgia 
system, as avowed without shame by himself in 
his Confessiojis. 

Fortunately or unfortunately for Frederick, the 
introducer of the Borgia system into Prussian 
politics, the Red Cross was still unknown, or he 
would doubtless have converted what victories 
the Austrians did win against him into defeats. 

I hold that the responsibility for the treachery 
of Frederick the Great must be laid at the door of 
his father, because without a system of smooth 
lying he would have been murdered by that mon- 
ster of cold-blooded cruelty. 

With this single exception, Frederick comes well 
out of that hellish ordeal. The breaking of the 
flute which was his chief solace did not deprive him 
of his love of music. His flute remained to him 
what the harp of David was to Saul. He played 
it for a couple of hours a day while he was solving 
the stern problems of maintaining the national 
existence. The depriving a born writer of all 
books except the religious works which are to 
literature what stones are to bread, could not rob 
him of his desire to write or his literary gift. And, 
above all, the harshness with which his governors 
and gaolers were compelled to treat him, did not 
lead to his revenging himself upon them, when he 



Introduction • il 

came to have the power; and if he showed no 

affection to his wife, or anyone else on earth except 
the literary friends who were transfigured to him 
by Genius, this also may be put down to Frederick 
William, who not only gave him the gall of hatred 
instead of the honey of parental love, but deliber- 
ately cut him off from every soft breeze of affection. 
His sister Wilhelmina of Baireuth, his fellow-vic- 
tim imder the lash, jeigned alone in the one tender 
spot in his heart. 

His treachery included ingratitude and invested 
it with a halo in militarist eyes. It may be due 
to a distorted hero-worship for Frederick that the 
obligations of hospitality meant less to the Ger- 
mans of Antwerp than to the Bedouin of the desert. 

Frederick owed his Hfe to Maria Theresa's 
father, yet when the Emperor died, he not only 
broke the Pragmatic Sanction, Hke the other 
monarchs who had signed it, but actually marched 
his armies into one of the girl-Princess's richest 
provinces in a time of profoimd peace and seized 
it. The acquisition of Silesia by Prussia was the 
first fruit of Frederick's treachery and brigandage 
— the brigandage extolled by von Bernhardi and 
practised by Potsdam. Treachery continued to 
sully his glory through every alliance of his reign. 
When his ally prospered too much, he went over 
to the enemy; it was no part of his policy to let 
France crush Austria or Austria crush France. 
And though England deserted him instead of his 
deserting England, he was offering to desert her for 



12 Introduction 

France at the same time as he told the British 
Ambassador, on Jtily 9, 1757, that "His Prussian 
Majesty said that as he resolved to continue 
firmly united with His [Britannic] Majesty, it 
would be to their mutual interest to think of terms 
of peace honourable and safe for both, " etc. 

When he was about to seize Silesia, he wrote to 
Podewils, who urged that some legal claim could be 
furbished up: "The question of right {droit) is 
the affair of ministers: it is your affair; it is time 
to work at it in secret, for the orders to the troops 
are given. " And a quarter of a century later he 
wrote: "The jurisprudence of sovereigns is com- 
monly the right of the Stronger. " 

I may now turn to the white side of his shield, 
and I turn with pleasure, for Frederick the Great 
was truly great — perhaps it would not be too much 
to say that no one has ever better deserved to be 
the national hero. For Prussia would have dis- 
appeared from the face of Europe if it had not been 
for his invincible soul, instead of being blessed with 
a vastly increased population and territory, and 
when he had made her position secure on the 
battle-field, he showed equal ability and resolution 
in rehabilitating commerce and agriculture in his 
ruined kingdom, which, after all his wars, he left 
free from debt. Nor does the total number of 
Prussian soldiers killed during his reign (180,000) 
contrast unfavourably with the losses of his 
descendant's armies in three months of the present 
war. 



Introduction 13 

While his wars lasted, every interest in his 
kingdom was sacrificed to the maintenance of his 
army. He did not pay any of the salaries to the 
civil employees of the Government from his min- 
isters downwards, and he drained the country of 
nearly everything except the men employed in 
agriculture. But when war was over he employed 
his war-treasure of 25,000,000 thalers saved for the 
next campaign, and his war-horses — sixty thousand 
of them — and even the personnel of his army in 
restoring agriculture and re-starting industries, 
and he not only restored them, but set about "pro- 
tecting" them. 

Justice has not been rendered to his efforts in 
this direction, because most of our English lives of 
Frederick were written at a time when Free Trade 
was a fetish hymned by a chorus of half -persuaded 
hypocrites. Frederick saw, as the founders of the 
commercial greatness of the United States and the 
new German Empire saw, that the creation of 
industries depended on discouraging the importa- 
tion of anything which could be manufactured in 
the country. 

The success of Free Trade in England for so 
many years reminds me of what Barney Thompson, 
the bookmaker, said to one of the richest men in 
Australia, when the latter was being purse-proud 
in the bar of Mack's Hotel after the Geelong Races : 
"What's the good of you blowing about yoiir 
money? — a log could have made it when you did. " 
At that time England's Free-traders had met with 



14 Introduction 

no opposition, because no one else had anything 
to sell. Frederick's policy of protection pre- 
vented any of the sorely needed gold from leaving 
Prussia, and resulted in the establishment of all 
sorts of industries, notably those of an agricul- 
tural nature. These he helped in a novel way, 
and one which was of the highest importance, in a 
direction the value of which is not only realized 
still in Germany, but is being reaped by Germany 
at this moment. 

Frederick, who, when his reign began, had a 
standing army of over eighty thousand men, raised 
from a population of little over two millions, saw 
that the amount of fighting men which any nation 
can put into the field must ultimately depend on its 
population, and Prussia's population was a widow's 
mite compared with Austria's. Accordingly he 
set to work to drain the marshes in his kingdom, 
and settle them with foreigners selected for their 
sturdiness, who were induced to accept the position 
by gifts of land and exemption from taxes for so 
many years. When he died Prussia contained five 
million inhabitants and seventy-five thousand 
square miles. 

Frederick enjoys the further fame of being for 
his time a very humane prince. He reduced 
capital punishment as much as he could, and was 
never vindictive in repressing the indiscretions of 
well-disposed people. 

This was of a piece with his extraordinary toler- 
ance in religious matters. He allowed and pro- 



Introduction 15 

tected all creeds. He allowed his subjects to think 
as they liked, provided that they let him do as he 
liked. He not only restored the Lutherans, whose 
religion was the most dynastic of German religions, 
to all their liberties and privileges, but he wel- 
comed the Jesuits when they were expelled from 
other countries, and found a use for them, because 
the supply of educators had rim short in his wars. 
They acclimatized readily and impressed their 
methods even upon Prussian diplomacy. 

In spite of all the ravages of his wars, he left 
Prussia immensely stronger than when he came to 
it; he laid the foundations upon which Bismarck 
reared the stately edifice of the new German 
Empire, the edifice filled to overflowing with wealth 
and prosperity by William II before he com- 
menced the mad gamble now in progress — a gamble 
which recalls the prophecy of Mirabeau: "If ever 
a foolish prince ascends this throne we shaU see the 
formidable giant suddenly collapse, and Prussia 
will fall like Sweden. " 

Frederick had few pleasiires, except that of hos- 
pitality. He liked good living, and for his boon 
companions chose men of the highest intellect,. 
chiefly Frenchmen. All the world knows of his 
almost passionate friendship for Voltaire, tempered 
as it was by Voltaire's contempt for Frederick 
except as a man of action, and Frederick's con- 
tempt for Voltaire except as a man of letters. 
When Voltaire came to Frederick as a political 
envoy, Frederick laughed at his diplomacy just as 



i6 Introduction 

much as Voltaire laughed at the King's French 
verses. How malicious he could be about Voltaire 
will be found in the Confessions. D'Alembert 
was another friend of Frederick's, and he made 
Maupertuis the head of the Berlin Academy. 

He was an indefatigable worker. When he died, 
it was said of him that his death was the only rest 
he ever took in his life. He certainly worked just 
as hard till the day of his death, for at eleven 
o'clock on his last night he ordered that he should 
be waked at four to work. But he died two hours 
too soon in the arms of the faithful valet who had 
been holding him up since midnight. The last 
words he spoke were to ask for his favourite dog, 
and to bid them cover it with a quilt. 

Of his habits, Mr. W. F. Reddaway, the most 
readable of his biographers, wrote: 

His habit was to rise at dawn or earlier. The 
first three or four hours of the morning were allotted 
to toilet, correspondence, a desultory breakfast of 
strong coffee and fruit, preceded by a deep draught of 
cold water flavoured with fennel leaves, and flute- 
playing as an accompaniment to meditation on busi- 
ness. Then came one or two hours of rapid work with 
his secretaries, followed by parade, audiences, and 
perhaps a little exercise. Punctually at noon Freder- 
ick sat down to dinner, which was always the chief 
social event of the day, and in later life became his only 
solid meal. He supervised his kitchen like a depart- 
ment of State, He considered and often amended the 
bill of fare, which contained the names of the cooks 



Introduction 17 

responsible for every dish. After dinner he marked 
with a cross the courses which had merited his ap- 
proval. He inspected his household accounts with 
minute care and proved himself a master of domestic 
economy. The result was a dinner that Voltaire 
considered fairly good for a country in which there was 
no game, no decent meat, and no spring chickens. 

Two hours, sometimes even four, were spent at 
table. Occasionally the time was devoted to the dis- 
cussion of important business with high officials, 
but in general Frederick used it to refresh himself after 
his six or seven hours of toil. He ate freely, preferring 
highly spiced dishes, drank claret mixed with water, 
and talked incessantly. He was a skilful and agree- 
able host, putting his guests instantly at their ease, and 
by Voltaire's account, calling forth wit in others. 
After dismissing the company he returned to his 
flute, and then put the final touches to the morning's 
business. After this he drank coffee and passed some 
two hours in seclusion. During this period he nerved 
himself for fresh grappling with affairs by plunging into 
literature. In the year 1749 he produced no less 
than forty works. About six o'clock he was ready to 
receive his lector or to converse with artists and 
learned men. At seven began a small concert, in 
which Frederick himself used often to perform. Sup- 
per followed, but was brief, unless the conversation was 
of unusual interest. Otherwise the King went to bed 
at about nine o'clock and slept five or six hours. In 
later life he gave up suppers, but continued to invite 
a few friends for conversation. He then allowed him- 
self rather more sleep. In his last years he lost the 
power to play his flute, and with it, apparently, the 
desire to hear music. 



1 8 Introduction 

Mr. Reddaway adds that Frederick would not 
endure the presence of any woman — that, strictly 
speaking, he had no courtiers, and that his private 
secretary, Eichel, whom he worked like a slave, 
was never seen by any human being. 

Frederick, who wrote a great deal more than 
most professional authors, could be really witty, 
though much of his wit consisted in drawing atten- 
tion to other people's weaknesses — an easy per- 
formance for an absolute monarch, since most men 
can do it when they are too drunk to fear the con- 
sequences, which may be the origin of the saying 
in vino Veritas. 

Treitschke gives Frederick a very high rank as 
an author, but nothing which Frederick ever wrote 
is as readable in a translation as the Confessions 
which are given in this volume. The truth is that 
eighteenth century writings have to be excellent 
before they are readable, because they lack the 
human frankness of some other centuries. This 
frankness Frederick achieved only in the poorest 
of his literary productions, and for this reason 
Frederick's fame as an author is dead out of his 
own country; he is read only for the light which 
he throws upon that cynical, valiant soul which 
achieved one of the greatest works in the world — 
the creation of Prussia. 

A few dates may be useful in following Treitsch- 
ke' s life of the great Prussian King, for Treitschke 
deals in dicta rather than dates. 

Frederick was bom on January 24, 17 12. His 



X 



Introduction 19 

mother was a sister of George II. He was eighteen 
years old when he tried to flee with Katte to France, 
and twenty-eight when his father died in 1740. 
He was married in 1733 to Princess EHzabeth of 
Brunswick-Bevem, related to the Austrian House. 
The Emperor Charles VI, Maria Theresa's father, 
died on October 20, 1740, and on December i6th 
Frederick entered Silesia with twenty-eight thou- 
sand men, with the intention of annexing it. His 
victory at MoUwitz, which practically gave him 
the coimtry, was fought on April 10, 1741, but 
he was not confirmed in it till his victory of 
Chotusitz, May 17, 1742, which was followed 
on June nth by the Peace of Breslau. 

This is called the first Silesian war. In the next 
war against Austria, in 1744 (the second Silesian 
war), he took Prague, September 16, 1744, but 
had to abandon it shortly afterwards. He had 
his revenge at his great victories of Hohenfriedberg, 
on June 5, 1745, and Sohr, September 30, 1745, 
both against the Austrians, and Hennersdorf, 
November 23, 1745, against the Austrians and 
Saxons combined, while the Prince of Dessau 
defeated another Austrian and Saxon army at 
Kesselsdorf on December 15th. The second 
Silesian war was terminated by the Peace of Dres- 
den, signed on Christmas Day, 1745. 

On August 29, 1756, Frederick crossed the 
Saxon frontier and began the Seven Years' War. 
The indecisive battle of Lobositz was fought 
between Frederick and the Austrian Marshal 



20 Introduction 

Browne, and before the end of the year he took 
possession of Saxony. On May 6, 1757, he won 
the battle of Prague, after enormous losses on both 
sides, and blockaded the city; but on June i8th 
he lost the great battle of Kollin, and had to raise 
the blockade and evacuate Bohemia. On Novem- 
ber 5, 1757, he won the great battle of Rossbach, 
and a month later another supreme victory at 
Leuthen. On the 2 ist, Breslau capitulated to him, 
and a week later Liegnitz. But his General, 
Lehwaldt, had been defeated by the Russian 
General Apraxin at Gross-Jagersdorf on August 
30th. In 1758 he marched into Moravia and 
besieged Olmiitz, but was compelled to retreat 
owing to the capture of a convoy of three or four 
thousand wagons by the Austrian General Laudon ; 
on August 25th he won the battle of Zomdorf 
over the Russians, which ended their campaign, 
but on October 14th he was surprised and heavily 
defeated by the Austrians at Hochkirch, and on 
the same day lost his sister, the Margravine of 
Baireuth. 

But for the English subsidy of 4,000,000 thalers 
Frederick would have been starved out in 1759. 
On July 25th his army was defeated by the Rus- 
sians at Kay, and on August 12th he saw his army 
utterly routed by the combined Austrians and 
Russians at Kunersdorf, He lost Dresden by 
surrender on September 24th, and on November 
23d Finck and his army of 12,000 men laid down 
their arms at Maxen. 



Introduction 21 

In the western field things had gone better. 
Ferdinand of Brunswick had driven the French 
army across the Rhine on June 23, 1758, at 
Crefeld, and though the French took Frankfurt 
on January 2, 1759, and won a battle at Bergen 
on April 13, 1759, they were severely defeated 
at Minden, August i, 1759. 

On June 23, 1760, a Prussian corps was anni- 
hilated at Landeshut and Glatz capitulated on 
July 22d. But Frederick won a great victory 
over the Austrians under Laudon at Liegnitz on 
August 15th, and a hotly contested battle against 
the Austrians under Daun at Torgau on Novem- 
ber 3d, though Laudon had surprised and captured 
the great fortress of Schweidnitz on October ist. 
The condition of Prussia at the end of this year 
appeared hopeless ; the army had declined to sixty 
thousand men, and even more in quality than in 
numbers. But on January 5, 1762, the Czarina 
Elizabeth of Russia died, and was succeeded by her 
nephew, Peter III, the husband of the great 
Catherine, who was an idolatrous admirer of 
Frederick and at once recalled the Russian army. 
Prussia and Russia signed a peace on May 5th, 
and an offensive and defensive alliance on June 
8th, and Sweden made peace with Prussia at 
Hamburg on May 22d. 

But in the interval the elder Pitt had been 
replaced as Prime Minister of England by the 
feeble Bute, who had but one desire — to terminate 
the war as soon as possible, and six months after 



22 Introduction 

Peter Ill's succession the whole of Russia became 
so disgusted with him that on July 9, 1762, he 
was deposed by his wife, and a few days later 
strangled by her lover, Alexis Orloff. On July 
21, 1762, Frederick won a battle over the Aus- 
trians at Burkersdorf, and in October captured 
Schweidnitz, Before the end of the year a truce 
was made which proved to be the end of the Seven 
Years' War — the Peace of Hubertusburg being 
signed on February 5, 1763. 

Neither Frederick nor the Austrians gained an 
inch of territory in the Seven Years' War, but 
Austria failed in her object, which was to form a 
coalition to crush Frederick, and from this time for- 
wards Prussia and Austria were equals and rivals. 

It took Frederick twenty-three years, exactly 
half his reign, to arrive at this. The other half 
was spent almost entirely in peace, though there 
was a campaign, and gave Frederick the oppor- 
tunity to show his powers of organizing agricul- 
tural and commercial enterprises and an economic 
system. 

The principal events of the latter half of Freder- 
ick's reign were the Partition of Poland, the Bava- 
rian Succession War, and the foundation of the 
League of Princes. In 1772, Frederick persuaded 
Austria and Russia to join him in the first Partition 
of Poland. His share was of great value to him, 
because until he obtained possession of Prussian 
Poland, East Prussia was detached from the rest 
of the kingdom. 



Introduction 23 

Maria Theresa was only with great difficulty 
persuaded by her ambitious son to come into the 
arrangement. She complained that they had 
aimed at two incompatible objects at once, "to 
act in the Prussian fashion, and at the same time to 
preserve the semblance of honesty," to which 
Frederick sneeringly repUed : ' ' She is always weep- 
ing but always annexing. " 

The War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778 led 
to very little fighting. The main armies were 
unable to attack each other, and when the Czarina 
threatened to interfere on the Prussian side, 
Austria came to terms and made the Peace of 
Teschen, May 13, 1779. A year and a half later 
Maria Theresa died, leaving the restless Joseph 
without any steadying influence. To counter his 
attempts to increase the Imperial authority, 
Frederick gradually worked up not only the Pro- 
testant Princes of the Empire, but even the Cath- 
olic ecclesiastical States, to form the League of 
Princes (Furstenbund) , which was signed in the 
first instance by Brandenburg, Hanover, and 
Saxony only, on July 23, 1785. About a year 
afterwards, on August 17, 1786, Frederick died 
at the age of seventy -foiir. 

This Filrstenhund was a fitting conclusion to his 
career, for it coincides approximately with the new 
German Empire. 

Frederick found Prussia the smallest and weak- 
est of the Great Powers, and left her equal to any 
of them. That should be his epitaph. 



24 Introduction 

TREITSCHKE's study of FREDERICK THE GREAT 

Treitschke's study of Frederick would be inter- 
esting if it were only as a tour de force of character 
analysis. I think he overestimates the value of 
Frederick's Anti-Machiavel and his Letters on 
Patriotism, which are practically dead as far as 
the foreign reader is concerned; but in other re- 
spects his delineation of Frederick is compara- 
tively free from the advocate's partisanship which 
depreciates Treitschke's value as an historian. 

Whether Treitschke would have treated Freder- 
ick so impartially if he had been alive now is 
doubtful. To give an instance: a couple of pages 
after his magnificent summing-up of Frederick's 
greatness, he has a paragraph which is about the 
strongest condemnation of the present war which 
ever came from a German pen : 

The love of peace of the House of HohenzoUern 
remained alive even in its greatest war-princes. 
Frederick valued power, but only as a means for the 
well-being and civilization of the nations; that it 
should be an end in itself, that the struggle for power 
as such should bestow historic fame, seemed to him 
as an insult to the honour of a sovereign. Therefore 
he wrote his passionate polemic-treatise against 
Machiavelli. Therefore, in his writings, he returned 
again and again to the terrible warning of Charles XII 
of Sweden. He might have felt secretly that iii his 
own breast were working irresistible forces, which 
might lead him to similar errors, and was never tired 



Introduction 25 

of portraying the hoUowness of objectless military 
fame .... Already in his impetuous youth he had 
made up his mind about the moral objects of power: 
"This State must become strong," he wrote at that 
time, "that it may play the lofty rdle of preserving 
peace only from love of justice, and not from fear. 
But if ever injustice, bias, and vice gain the upper hand 
in Prussia, then I wish the House of Brandenburg 
a speedy downfall. That says all." 

To show how different from this is the undiluted 
Treitschke, one may quote a passage which has 
inspired numberless passages in von Bemhardi: 

The educational power of war awakened again 
in these North-German races above all that rough 
pride which once inspirited the invaders of Italy 
(Romfahrer) and the conquerors of the Slavs in the 
Middle Ages. 

And a few sentences later on he talks of the 
"descendants of those heroic nations, the Vandals 
and the Goths," in the same way as the present 
Emperor bade his soldiers emulate the Huns in 
an unfortunate speech which has given, through 
newspaper-headings, a severe blow to the German 
cause in America. 

Yet Treitschke, like von Bemhardi, was, when 
he was not crusading, very sane and fair. He 
writes, for instance: "The alert self-reliance of the 
Prussians contrasted strongly with the inoffensive 
kindly modesty of the other Germans, " just as the 



26 Introduction 

war news of to-day often contrasts the Saxons' or 
Bavarians' behaviour in Belgium or France with 
that of the Prussians. And a Httle lower down 
he says: "It was betrayed now in confident brag- 
ging, in the thousand satirical anecdotes of Im- 
perial stupidity and Prussian Hussar strategisms. " 
For which von Hindenburg's name will probably 
supply dictionaries with a new word. 

Yet you can see in Frederick many signs of the 
anticipation of modern Prussian ideas which 
make him one of the most interesting figures in 
history, as he is one of the greatest figures at the 
present time. For in many ways the Prussia of 
to-day is the Prussia of Frederick's time come to 
life again. It was Frederick who said : 

With such soldiers there is no risk : a General who in 
other armies would be considered foolhardy, is only 
considered with us as doing his duty. [And again he 
says :] It seems that Heaven has appointed the King 
to make all preparations which wise precautions 
before the beginning of a war demand. Who knows, 
if Providence has not reserved it for me to make a 
glorious use of these war means at some future time, 
and to convert them to the realization of the plans for 
which the foresight of my fathers intended them? 

But I do not agree with Treitschke when he 
writes: "It was Frederick's work that ... a 
third tendency should arise, a policy which was 
only Prussian, and nothing further: to it Ger- 
many's future belonged." And he writes later 



Introduction 27 

on: "Dohm concluded a clever pamphlet with 
these words: 'German and Prussian interests can 
never stand in one another's way.' The discern- 
ing mind of the old King was not moved by such 
dreams. " 

And we know how widely spread the distrust of 
Prussia was in Frederick's day, because Goethe, 
quoted by Treitschke, tells us that: "Even the 
humblest and weakest of the allied States, Weimar 
and Dessau, secretly discussed how they could 
protect themselves against their Prussian protect- 
or's lust of power. " 

When Treitschke talks of the moral justification 
of the treacherous seizure of Silesia, one is irresist- 
ibly reminded of the justification of the present 
war by von Bemhardi and others, for the benefi- 
cent results likely to happen from the spread of 
Prussian Kultur — the culture which it would be 
more reasonable to call the Prussian vulture, 
Treitschke damns Frederick's excuses for seizing 
Silesia with faint apologies: 

He wished to spare Austria, and contented himself 
with bringing forward the most important of the 
carefully pondered pretensions of his House. Alone, 
without vouchsafing one word to the foreign Powers 
on the watch, with an overwhelming invading force, 
he broke into Silesia. Germany, used to the solemn 
reflections and cross-reflections of her Imperial law- 
yers, received with astonishment and indignation the 
doctrine that the rights of States were only to be 
maintained by active power. 



28 Introduction 

Elsewhere in this book it will be seen how 
Frederick excelled himself on this occasion by 
ordering Podewils to find excuses because he had 
already given orders to his troops. The doctrine 
of the active power has been exploited for all it is 
worth by von Bernhardi in his Germany and the 
Next War. 

Treitschke is not very convincing upon the 
subject of Poland. His complaints of "the Poles' 
horrible outrages in the Weichsel district, with 
that insolent disregard of the rights of others and 
the nationality of others which distinguishes the 
Poles above all the nations of Europe," leaves us 
cold, when our paper every morning brings news 
of fresh devastation in Poland. And the sentence 
in which Treitschke complains that: "Others re- 
peated credulously what Poland's old confederates, 
the French, invented to stigmatize the partitioning 
Powers," simply kills Treitschke 's reputation as 
an impartial historian. The world of honest men 
has never ceased to condemn the Partition of 
Poland, and hailed with almost religious delight 
Russia's proclamation that the ancient nation of 
the Poles should be reconstituted as a practically 
autonomous people under the shield of the Lion 
of the East, the great protector of Slav nationality. 
Any criticism, which Germany might have to make 
on the subject, is discounted by the fact that she 
at once proceeded to suggest a German parody of 
the movement, a highly improved province to 
embrace Russian Poland as well as Prussian Po- 



Introduction 29 

land. And any advantages, which may have been 
latent in this suggestion, are rendered difficult of 
realization by the Belging of Russian Poland. 

The question of the Balance of Power, which is 
handled so destructively by von Bernhardi, comes 
up a good deal in Treitschke's life of Frederick 
the Great. I think von Bernhardi was right, but 
I arrive at my conclusions from a standpoint which 
he would hardly share. The European balance 
of power for many years has been like a wooden 
garden fence, whose bottom under the soil has 
rotted. From time to time — the last time was 
during and after the Balkan War against Turkey 
— Europe has been on the verge of a conflagration 
like the present because Austria has resisted any 
intelUgent solution of the Balkan question. Now, 
if the war goes as we all hope and believe it will go, 
the question will be settled. The Turk, who has 
no business in Europe, because he is incapable of 
sharing European ideas, will be driven out of 
Europe. Russia will have Constantinople, essen- 
tial to her as giving her that free entrance to the 
Mediterranean which is her right. England will 
take the Persian Gulf and make the Euphrates 
Valley as prosperous as the Nile Valley, and Egypt 
also will be managed in a less anomalous fashion. 
Servia wiU have her sea-board on the Adriatic. 
Bulgaria, if she is not seduced into sharing the 
suicide of Turkey, will have her port on the 
iEgean. Greece will get back all the islands in 
which the races of ancient Greece, who taught the 



30 Introduction 

world its civilization, have remained so much 
purer than in Athens itself. Rumania will annex 
all the Rumanian districts which lie outside of 
its present borders, and Italy, if she joins the 
Powers of the Triple Entente, will not only get 
back the Italian provinces which still remain under 
the rule of Austria, but will have a footing on the 
Balkan Peninsula, lower down, which will enable 
her to fulfil her natural mission of being the channel 
of commerce and civilization for all the Balkan 
nations. 

For many years this has been the natural solu- 
tion of the Eastern Question, but Austria has 
stood in the way — Austria, which just as naturally 
pictured herself overrunning the Balkan Pen- 
insula, and finding her way down to the great 
southern port of Salonika. Germany backed up 
Austria, in the hope perhaps that Austria, con- 
taining so many people of German nationality, 
would one day come into the German Empire. 
The difficulty was that the Balkan Peninsula was 
all in Slav hands or a natural inheritance for the 
Slavs. Without conquering Russia, the Austrian 
dreams were unrealizable, and rather than allow 
the Balkan Slavs to fulfil their mission, Austria 
preferred to perpetuate a state of wars and rumours 
of wars. Turkey's suicidal entrance into the arena 
has rendered a settlement possible. 

If Frederick had foreseen this he would doubtless 
have left us his warnings on the subject. He was 
free enough with his warnings as to the trouble 



Introduction 31 

which might ensue from the restless energy of the 
Emperor Joseph the Austrian. 

It would not be right for me to conclude this 
brief survey of Treitschke's judgment on Frederick 
without quoting the intelligent anticipation of the 
Dane Bernstorff, writing to Choiseul, one of the 
trifling Frenchmen whose employment by Louis 
XV rendered Frederick's task so much easier 
in his wars with France. "Everything which you 
undertake to-day to prevent the rise of an entirely 
military Monarchy in the middle of Germany, 
whose iron arm will soon crush the minor princes — 
is all labour wasted!" 

Douglas Sladen. 



The Confessions of Frederick 
the Great 



33 



The Confessions of Frederick 
the Great 



The spirit of these Confessions and the principles 
advocated by Frederick are very closely in line with 
the teachings of Treitschke and with the national 
policy championed by Bernhardi. 

MORNING THE FIRST 

ORIGIN OF OUR FAMILY 

IN the times of disorder and confusion, amidst 
barbarous nations, there was seen to spring up 
a new arrangement of sovereignties. The govern- 
ors of different countries shook off the yoke of 
subjection, and soon became powerful enough to 
overawe their masters; they obtained privileges, 
or, to come nearer to the truth, it was with the 
form of one knee on the ground that they ran 
away with the substance. Among those daring 
ones, there were several who laid the foundations 
of the greatest monarchies; and perhaps, on a 
fair calculation, even all the emperors, kings, and 
foreign princes at this very time owe their respec- 
tive states to them. As for us, we are, most 

35 



36 The Confessions of 

undoubtedly, in that case. I see you blush at this. 
I forgive you for once ; but let me advise you never 
to play the child so again. Remember, once for 
all, that, in matter of kingdoms, he catches them 
that can; and that there is no wrong but in the 
case of being forced to return them. 

The first of our ancestors, who acquired some 
rights of sovereignty over the country of which 
he was governor, was Tassillon, of Hohenzollern. 
The thirteenth of his descendants was Burgrave of 
Nuremberg; the twenty-fifth of them was Elector 
of Brandenburg, and the thirty-seventh. King of 
Prussia. Our family, as well as all the others, has 
had its Achilles', its Ciceros, its Nestors, its 
drivellers and its drones, its mothers-in-law, and, 
without doubt, its women of gallantry. It has 
also often aggrandized itself b}^ those kinds of 
right, which are only known to princes at once in 
luck, and in force enough to exert them; for in 
the order of our successions, we see those of con- 
veniency, or expectancy, and of protection. 

From the time of Tassillon to that of the great 
Elector, we did little more than vegetate. We 
could, in the empire, reckon fifty princes in no 
point inferior to us; and, properly speaking, we 
were but one of the branches of the great sconce 
or chandelier of the empire. William the Great, 
by the splendour of his actions, raised our family 
into pre-eminence; and at length, in 1701 (the 
date, you see, is not a very ancient one), vanity 
placed a crown on the head of my grandfather; and 



Frederick the Great 37 

it is to this epoch that we ought to refer our true 
existence, since it put us into a condition of act- 
ing on the footing of kings, and of treating, upon 
terms of equality, with all the powers of the earth. 

Were we to estimate the virtues of our ancestors, 
we might easily conclude, that it is not to any 
eminence in them that our family owes its aggran- 
dizement. The greatest part of our princes 
have been rather remarkable for misconduct; 
but it was chance and circumstances that have 
been of service to us. I would even have you to 
observe, that the first diadem that bound our 
brows was placed on one of the vainest and lightest 
of heads, and that head on a body crooked and 
humpbacked. 

And here, I am aware, my dear nephew, that 
I am leaving you in the dark as to our origin. It 
has been pretended that that same Coimt of 
Hohenzollern was of a great family; but, in truth, 
few ever appeared in the world so bare of titles. 
However, at the worst, it is indisputable that we 
are of an ancient noble extraction: good, good 
gentlemen, in short; let us stick to that. 

THE SITUATION OF MY KINGDOM 

As to this point, I am not so well off as I could 
wish. To convince yourself of which, cast your 
eyes over the map, and you will see that the great- 
est part of my territories is dispersed or divided in 
such a manner, that they cannot mutually assist 



38 The Confessions of 

each other. I have no great rivers that run 
through my provinces; some border upon them, 
but few intersect them.^ 

OF THE SOIL OF MY TERRITORIES 

A third at least of my dominions Hes in waste; 
another third is in woods, waters, or marshes. 
The third, which is cultivated, produces nor wine, 
nor olives, nor mulberry- trees. No fruits nor 
garden-stuff come to anything, without great care, 
and very few to the true point of perfection. I 
have only a" few parts in which the wheat and rye 
have some reputation. 

OF THE MANNERS OF THE INHABITANTS 

Under this head I have nothing particular or 
decisive to pronounce, because my kingdom is 
but a kind of mosaic, made up of various pieces. 
All that I can, with any certainty, say, is, that, in 
general, my subjects are hardy and brave, uncuri- 
ous as to eating, but fond of drinking ; tyrants on 
their estates, and slaves in my service; insipid 
lovers, and surly husbands ; of a wondrously cold, 
phlegmatic turn, which I take to be at the bottom, 
rank stupidity; good civilians, little of philo- 
sophers, less of poets, and still less of orators; 

' The situation, extent, and soil, of the territories of the great 
Frederick, have been wonderfully changed of late years; changed 
upon his own principles, too, as will appear hereafter. — Note oj 
eighteenth century translator. 



Frederick the Great 39 

affecting a great plainness in their dress, but 
imagining themselves dressed in high taste, with 
a little bag and a great hat, boots up to their waist, 
a little cane, a very short coat, with a very long 
waistcoat. 

As to the women, they are almost all fat, and 
special breeders; they have great gentleness, love 
their domestic employment, and are commonly 
faithful enough to their husbands. As to the 
girls, they enjoy the privileges in fashion; to 
which I have so little objection, that I have, in 
my memoirs, sought to excuse their weaknesses. 
I hold it good policy to give those pretty creatures 
all the ease and freedom that may be, to prevent 
their learning a horrid practice, by means of which 
they might amuse themselves without fear of 
consequences, but which would cause a notable 
prejudice to the state. Nay, to encourage them 
the more to population, I take care in my regi- 
ments to give the preference to the fruit of their 
amours; and, if the offspring of an officer, I make 
him an ensign, and often raise him to higher rank 
before his turn. 



MORNING THE SECOND 

ON RELIGION 

RELIGION is absolutely necessary in a state. 
This is a maxim which it would be madness 
to dispute; and a king must know very little of 
politics, indeed, that should suffer his subjects to 
make a bad use of it ; but then it would not be very 
wise in a king to have any religion himself. Mark 
well, my dear nephew, what I here say to you; 
there is nothing that tyrannizes more over the head 
and heart than religion; because it neither agrees 
with our passions, nor with those great political 
views which a monarch ought to have. The 
true religion of a prince is his interest and his 
glory. He ought, by his royal station, to be dis- 
pensed from having any other. He may, indeed, 
preserve outwardly a fair occasional appearance, 
for the sake of amusing those who are about him, 
or who watch his motions and character. 

If he fears God, or, to speak as the priests and 
women do, if he fears hell, like Lewis XlVth,^ 
in his old age, he is apt to become timorous, 
childish, and fit for nothing but to be a capuchin. 

' And, it might be added, ewis XVI. — Vide Madame Roland. 
— Footnote of eighteenth century translator. 

40 



Confessions of Frederick the Great 41 

If the point is to avail himself of a favourable 
moment for seizing a province, ^ an army of devils, 
to defend it, present themselves to his imagination; 
we are, on that supposition, weak enough to think 
it an injustice, and we proportion in our conscience, 
the punishment to the crime. Should it be neces- 
sary to make a treaty with other powers, if we 
remember that we are Christians, we are undone; 
all would be over with us ; we should be constantly 
bubbles. As to war, it is a trade, in which any the 
least scruple would spoil everything, and, indeed, 
what man of honour would ever make war, if he 
had not the right to make rules that should author- 
ize plunder, fire, and carnage? 

I do not, however, mean that one should make 
a proclamation of impiety and atheism; but it 
is right to adapt one's thoughts to the rank one 
occupies. All the popes, who had common sense, 
have held no principles of religion but what 
favoured their aggrandizement. It would be the 
silliest thing imaginable, if a prince were to confine 
himself to such paltry trifles as were contrived 
only for the common people. Besides, the best 
way for a prince to keep fanaticism out of his 
country is for him to have the most cool indiffer- 
ence for reHgion. BeHeve me, dear nephew, that 
holy mother of ours has her little caprices, hke any 
woman, and is commonly as inconstant. Attach 
yourself, then, dear nephew, to true philosophy, 

' Alas, unhappy Poland! — Footnote of eighteenth century 
translator. 



42 The Confessions of 

which is ever consolatory, luminous, courageous, 
dispassionate, and inexhaustible as Nature. You 
will then soon see, that you will not have, in your 
kingdom, any material dispute about religion ; for _ 
parties are never formed but on the weakness of 
princes, or on that of their ministers. 

There is one important reflection I would with 
you make; it is this: your ancestors have, in 
this matter, conducted their operations with the 
greatest political dexterity; they introduced a 
reformation which gave them the air of apostles 
at the same time that it was filling their purse. 
Such a revolution was, without doubt, the most 
reasonable that could ever happen in such a point 
as this: but, since there is now hardly anything 
left to be got in that way, and that, in the present 
position of things, it would be dangerous to tread 
in their footsteps, it is therefore even best to 
stick to toleration. Retain well, dear nephew, 
the principle I am now to inculcate to you: let 
it be your rule of government, that men are to 
worship the Divinity in their own way; for, should 
you appear in the least neglectful of this in- 
dulgence, all would be lost and undone in yoiir 
dominions. 

Have you a mind to know why my kingdom is 
composed of so many sects? I will tell you: in 
certain provinces the Calvinists are in possession 
of all the offices and posts; in others, the Lutherans 
have the same advantage. There are some, where 
the Catholics are so predominant, that the king 



Frederick the Great 43 

can only send there one or two Protestant deputies ; 
and, of all the ignorant and blind fanatics, I dare 
aver to you that the Papists are the most fiery 
and the most atrocious. The priests in their 
senseless religion are untameable wild beasts, 
that preach up a blind submission to their wills, 
and exercise a complete despotism. They are 
assassins, robbers, violators of faith, and inex- 
pressibly ambitious. 

Mark but Rome! Observe with what a stupid 
effrontery she dares arrogate to herself dominion 
over the princes of the earth! As to the Jews, 
they are little vagrants, poor devils, that at 
bottom are not so black as they are painted. 
Almost everywhere rebuffed, hated, persecuted; 
they pay with tolerable exactness, those who en- 
dure them, and take their revenge by bubbling 
all the simpletons they can light on. 

As our ancestors made themselves in the ninth 
century. Christians, out of complaisance to the 
emperors; in the fifteenth, Lutherans, in order to 
seize the possessions of the church ; and Calvinists, 
in the sixteenth, to please the Dutch, upon the 
account of the succession of Cleves; I do not see 
why we should not make ourselves indifferent to 
all these religions for the sake of maintaining tran- 
quillity in our dominions. 

My father had formed an excellent project, but 
it did not succeed with him. He had engaged the 
President Laen to compose for him a small treatise 
on religion, which was to procure a coalition of the 



; 



44 The Confessions of 

three sects into one. The president abused the 
Pope, hinted that St. Joseph was a soft simpleton, 
took the dog of St. Roc by the ears, and pulled 
St. Anthony's pig by the tail; he expressed no faith 
in the story of the chaste Susannah, he looked on 
St. Bernard and St. Dominic as courtiers that were 
refined cheats, and protested against the canoniza- 
tion of St. Francis de Sales for a saint. The eleven 
thousand virgins met with no more quarter from 
his credulity than all the saints and martyrs of 
the Jesuit Loyola. 

As to the mysteries, he agreed that no explana- 
tion of them should be attempted, but that good 
sense ought to be put into everything, while he was 
by no means for being tied up to the mere sound 
of words. As to the Lutherans, he was for making 
of them the centre-point of union and of rest. He 
wanted the Catholics to be, in appearance, some- 
what less faithful to the court of Rome; but 
then he admitted that the Lutherans ought to 
betray less subtility of argument in their disputes. 
He insisted, that, on removing certain distinctions 
out of the way, the sects would find themselves 
very near to each other. He thought there would 
be more trouble required to bring the Calvinists to 
a reconciliation, because they had more preten- 
sions than the Lutherans. In the meanwhile, he 
proposed one good expedient, which was, not to 
have any but God for one's confidant, on occasion 
of taking the communion. He looked on the 
worship of images as a bait for the commor* people, 



Frederick the Great 45 

but admitted that it was proper for a country to 
have a tutelar Saint of some kind or other. 

As to the Monks, he was for expelling them, 
because he looked on them as an enemy that 
always laid the country under heavy contributions. 
But priests, he allowed them their housekeepers 
for wives. This scheme made a great noise, 
because those good ladies, the three mother- 
churches, thought themselves each respectively 
aggrieved, and that it was a sacrilege to touch 
upon the holy mysteries. But if this essay of a 
project had been relished, there would have been 
no efforts spared to have effectuated its execution. 
I have not, my dear nephew, renounced it, and 
I flatter myself that I shall facilitate to you the 
execution of it. The great point is, to be useful 
to the whole of humankind, by rendering all men 
brothers; and by making it a law to them to live 
together as friends and relations, by inculcating 
to them the absolute necessity of living and of 
dying in commutual peace and concord, and to 
seek their sole happiness in the social virtues. 

When these maxims shall have once taken root 
in the rising generations, the fruit of it will be 
the world's forming itself into one numerous 
family, and the so much celebrated golden age will 
come up to that state of felicity which I ardently 
wish to mankind, and which it will then enjoy 
without adulteration. Now, pray mark what I am 
doing for this purpose: I use my best endeavours 
that all the writings in my kingdom, on religion, 



46 The Confessions of 

should breathe the strongest spirit of contempt 
for all the reformers that ever were, and I never 
slip any the least occasion of unmasking the ambi- 
tious views of the court of Rome, of its priests, and 
ministers. Thus, little by little, I shall accustom 
my subjects to think as I do, and shall detach 
them from all prejudices. 

But as it is necessary to have some religious 
worship, I will, if I live long enough, underhand, 
bring into play some man of eloquence, who shall 
preach a new one. At first, I will give myself 
the air of designing to persecute him: but, little 
by little, I will declare myself his defender, and 
will, with warmth, embrace his system. And, if 
you must know the truth, that system is already 
made. 

Voltaire has composed the preamble to it; he 
proves the necessity of abandoning everything 
that has already been said upon religion, because 
there is no one point of it upon which everyone is 
agreed. He draws the picture of every chief of a 
sect with a mildness which bears a kind of resem- 
blance to truth. He has dug up certain curious 
anecdotes of popes, of bishops, of priests, of 
ministers, of the other sects, which diffuse a sin- 
gular gaiety over his work. It is written in a 
style so close and so rapid as not to leave time for 
reflection: and, full as this author is of the most 
subtile art, he has the air of the greatest candour 
imaginable, while he is advancing the most 
doubtful principles. 



Frederick the Great 47 

D'Alembert and Maupertuis have formed the 
groundwork of the plan, and the whole is calcu- 
lated with such scrupulous exactness, as to tempt 
one to believe that they had endeavoured to 
demonstrate it to themselves before they sought 
to demonstrate it to others. Rousseau has been 
at work for these four years past, to obviate all 
objections; and I am anticipating in imagination 
the pleasure I shall take in mortifying all the 
ignorant wretches that shall dare to contradict 
me; for there is an army of prelates and priests, 
constantly assembled, who are for ever imposing 
on the populace, which has neither the capacity 
nor the time to reflect. ^ Thence it comes to pass 
that, in those countries that swarm with priests, 
the people are more unhappy and more ignorant 
than in Protestant countries. 

The priests are like soldiers, who do mischief 
habitually and for amusement. There are already 
prepared fifty consequences for every object of 
dispute, and, at least, thirty reflections on each 
article of the Holy Scriptures. He is even actually 
taken up with furnishing proofs that everything, 
at present, preached from thence, is but a fable, 
that there never was a terrestrial paradise, and 
that it is degrading God to believe that he made, 
after his own image, a mere idiot, and his most 
perfect creature a rank, lewd, jade. 

For, in short, adds he, nothing but the length 
of the serpent's tail could have seduced Eve; and, 

^ So that more countries than one have a swinish multitude. 



48 Confessions of Frederick the Great 

in that case, it proves there must have been a 
horrid disorder of her imagination. ^ The Marquis 
d'Argens and M. Formey have prepared the con- 
stitution of a coimcil; I am to preside in it, but 
without pretending that the Holy Ghost is to give 
any the least particle of light to me more than to 
the rest. There shall assist at it but one minister 
of each sect of religion, and foiu" deputies of every 
province, two of which to be of the nobility and 
two of the commons, or third estate. All the other 
priests, monks and ministers, in general, to be ex- 
cluded, as being parties concerned in the matter. 
And that the Holy Ghost may the clearer appear 
to preside in this assembly, it will be agreed to 
decide everything honestly according to common 
sense. 

' Oh, fie! Frederick ! 



MORNING THE THIRD 

ON JUSTICE 

TO our subjects we owe justice, as they owe re- 
spect to us. ^ By this, I mean, dear nephew, 
that we must do justice to all men, and especially 
to our subjects, when it does not overset our own 
rights, or wound our own authority; for there 
ought to be no sort of equality between the right 
of the monarch and the right of the subject or 
slave. But we must be firmly impartial and just 
when the point is to settle a matter of right between 
one subject, whatever he may be, and another. 
This is an act which is alone enough to make us 
adored. 

Represent to yourself Charles I brought to the 
scaffold by that justice which the people implores, 
and demands with a loud voice. I am born with 
too much ambition to suffer in my dominion any 
order that should cramp my authority, and this 
most certainly is the only reason that obliged me 
to make a new code of justice. I am very sensible 
that I have reduced the old dame from her long 
robes to a jacket and petticoat; but I was afraid 

' This sentiment need not be quarrelled with, but mark the 
explanation. 

4 49 



50 The Confessions of 

of her sharp sight, as I knew her weight with the 
people, and knew, withal, that princes of any 
dexterity might, at the same time that they were 
satisfying their ambition, make themselves adored. 

The greatest part of my subjects really believed 
that I was moved at the grievances resulting to 
them from chicanery, or the tedious processes of 
the law. Alas! I own to you, nay, I sometimes 
blush to myself for it, that so far from having 
had such a relief in view, I am actually regretting 
the little advantages those processes used to 
procure me; for the taxes on them, and on the 
stamped papers made use of in them, have suffered 
a diminution, to the detriment of my revenues, 
near five hundred thousand livres. 

Do not then, my dear nephew, suffer yourself 
to be dazzled with the word justice; it is a word 
that has different relations, and is susceptible of 
different constructions. These are the ideas that 
I annex to it : 

Justice is the image of God. Now who can 
attain to such high perfection? Is it not more 
reasonable to give up so vain a project as that of an 
entire possession of her? Review all the kingdoms 
of the earth, examine and mark whether she is 
in any two kingdoms administered in the same 
form. Consult next the principles that rule man- 
kind, and see whether they and Justice agree. 
What is there, then, so extraordinary in a man's 
being just after his own way? When I cast my 
eyes over all the tribunals of my kingdom, I ob- 



Frederick the Great 51 

served an immense army of lawyers, all presumably 
honest men, and yet violently suspected of not 
being so. ^ 

Every tribunal had its superior; I myself had 
mine; for even those judgments given by my 
council were liable to control or opposition. I 
was not angry at this because it was a custom.^ 
But on examining, or rather on observing, chican- 
ery every day gaining ground, and invading the 
property of my subjects, I was frightened at all 

^"So are we all; all honourable men!" — Eighteenth century 
translator's note. 

' The men of the law can, in process of time, come to such 
a pitch, as to be a match for the monarch, to struggle with his 
power, and even to overset it. Under a weak prince, surrounded 
with ignorant or avaricious ministers, lawyers will start up, 
and strengthen themselves with the love of the people, whose 
cause they affect to embrace; and, little by little, they will 
accomplish their end of breaking, and levelling in the dust, the 
idols to which they publicly before burnt incense. Do not 
let the shrewd management of the parUaments of France be 
forgotten. 

Under the pretext of disburthening from the taxes they are 
loud for taking off, they exaggerate to the king the public dis- 
tresses, they paint the state running to its ruin, they give fresh 
spirit to the boldness of its enemies, destroy the patriotism 
of the subject, and end with usurping the administration into 
which they force themselves. 

Instead of doing justice to the wretches whom circumstances 
of oppression compel to apply to them, they drag them at their 
chariot-wheels, strip them, and send them to die naked on 
a dung-hill. All the philosophers of Paris loudly exclaim against 
these open depredations exercised on the weak. The men of the 
law in that kingdom have been ever depraved, and rapacious of 
money. Read the Chancellor de I'HSpital, and you will be con- 
vinced of this truth. — Note by eighteenth century translator. 



52 The Confessions of 

the immense bewildering labyrinths in which 
thousands of my subjects were losing themselves 
and being devoured aHve. But what gave me 
most disquiet was, the slow, but sure and constant, 
march of the people of the law, that spirit of 
liberty inseparable from their principles, and that 
dextrous management of theirs of preserving their 
advantages, and of crushing their enemies, with all 
the appearances of the most austere equity. 

I made pass in review before my memory all 
those acts full of rigour, and often very unaccount- 
able, of the parliaments of England and Paris, and 
was surprised at some of them being so disgraceful 
to the majesty of the throne. It was amidst all 
these reflections that I determined to strike at 
the foundations of this great power, and it was 
only by simplifying it as much as I could, that I 
have reduced it to the point at which I wanted it. 

You will, perhaps, be surprised, my dear nephew, 
that men who have no arms, and who never speak 
but with respect of the sacred person of the king, 
should be the only people in his kingdom able to 
give law to him. It is precisely for these very 
reasons that it is not difficult for them to check or 
set bounds to our power. There is no suspecting 
them of violence, since they always speak to us 
with the greatest decency, and our subjects are 
soon captivated and led away in chains by that 
firm eloquence, which seems never to display itself 
but for their happiness and our glory. 

I have often reflected on the advantages result- 



Frederick the Great 53 

ing to a kingdom from a body of representatives 
of the people, which is a depositary of its laws; 
I am even ready to believe that the crown is the 
safer on a king's head for its having been given, 
or for its being preserved, to him by such a body; 
but that he must be strictly an honest man, and 
made up of good principles, to permit his actions 
to stand every day its scrutiny or examination. 

When one has ambition, one must renounce that 
plan; I should never have done anything if I 
had been cramped. Perhaps I might have ob- 
tained the character of a just king, but I should 
have missed that of a hero. 

The limited monarch is oftener exposed to the 
vicissitudes of fortune than the arbitrary despot; 
but then the despot must be active, enlightened, 
and firm. There are more virtues required to 
give a lustre to a state of despotism than to that 
of monarchy. 

The courtier flatters the monarch, soothes his 
vices, and deceives him; the slave prostrates 
himself, but gives him right information. It is, 
then, of more use to a great man to reign arbi- 
trarily, but more grievous to the people to live 
under such a government. 



MORNING THE FOURTH 

ON POLITICS 

SINCE it has been agreed among men that to 
cheat or deceive one's fellow-creatures is a 
mean and criminal action, there has been sought 
for, and invented, a term that might soften the 
appellation of the thing, and the word, wnich 
undoubtedly has been chosen for the purpose, is 
Politics. Now the word has only been found out 
in favour of sovereigns, because we cannot quite 
so decently be called rogues and rascals. But, 
be that as it may, this is what I think as to politics. 
I understand, then, by this word, dear nephew, 
that we are ever to try to cheat others. It is the 
way to have the advantage, or, at least, to be on a 
footing with the rest of mankind. For you may 
rest persuaded that all the states of the world run 
the same career. Now this principle being once 
settled, never be ashamed of making alliances, and 
of being yourself the only party that draws advan- 
tage from them. Do not commit that stupid fault 
of not abandoning them whenever it is your 
interest so to do; and especially maintain vigor- 
ously this maxim, that stripping your neighbours 
4 54 



Confessions of Frederick the Great 55 

is only to take away from them the means of 
doing you a mischief. 

It is politics, properly speaking, that found 
kingdoms and preserve them; so that, dear 
nephew, it is fit that you understand them thor- 
oughly, and conceive them in their clearest light. 
For this purpose, I shall make two divisions of 
them to you, the one politics of the state, and 
the other private politics ; the first turns on the 
great interests of the kingdom; the other on the 
particular interests of the king, and of this we shall 
first treat. 

ON private politics 

A prince ought never to present to view but 
the fairest aspect of character, and this is a point 
to which you must pay a very serious attention. 
When I was only prince royal, I had very little 
of a military turn; I loved my ease and the 
pleasures of the table, and, as to love, I made it 
on all sides. 

When I came to be king, I appeared the soldier, 
the philosopher, the poet; I lay upon straw, I 
ate ammunition-bread at the head of my camp; 
I drank very little before my subjects, and appeared 
to have a contempt for women. 

As for my personal conduct, it is this: in my 
journeys I always go without a guard, and travel 
night and day; my train is far from numerous, 
but well chosen. My carriage is plain, but then 



56 The Confessions of 

it is hung upon special easy springs, and I sleep 
in it as well as in my bed. 

I seem to have no nicety about my eating and 
drinking. A lacquey, a cook, a confectioner, are 
all the menials I have for providing my table. I 
order my own dinner myself, and it is not what I 
acquit myself the worst of, as I know the country ; 
and whatever I call for, of wild game, of fish, or 
butcher's meat, it is always sure to be of the best 
produce of the land. 

When I come to a place of inhabitants, I have 
always a fatigued air, and show myself to the 
people in a very shabby surtout and a wig ill 
combed. 

These are trifles, but trifles that often make a 
marvellous impression. I give audience to the 
whole universe, except to priests, ministers of the 
Church, and monks; as those gentry are used to 
speak so as to be heard at a distance, I hear 
them from my window; a page receives them, 
and makes my compliments to them at the door. 
In everything I say, I affect the air of thinking of 
nothing but the happiness of my subjects; I 
ask questions of the nobility, of citizens, of 
mechanics, and enter with them into the minutest 
particulars. 

You have, my dear nephew, heard, as well as 
myself, the flattering discourse of those good kinds 
of people. You cannot forget him that said, that 
I must be an extraordinary good king, who could 
put myself to so much fatigue after having carried 



Frederick the Great 57 

on so long a war. You may also remember him, 
who pities me from his heart, on observing the bad 
surtout I had on, and the small dishes that were 
served on my table. The poor man did not know 
that I had a very good coat underneath, and could 
not imagine it possible to dine anything like well 
without a ham and a whole shoulder of veal on 
the table. 

At a review of my troops, before a regiment is 
to pass muster, I take care to read over the names 
of all its officers and sergeants, and I retain three 
or four of them, with the names of the companies 
to which they belong. I procure an exact informa- 
tion of the petty abuses which may have been 
committed by my captains, and I allow the soldiers 
liberty of complaining. 

The hour of the review being come, I set out 
from wherever I am. Presently the mob gets 
round me; nor do I suffer it to be kept off, but 
chat by the way with the first person that is near- 
est me, or that can make the most reasonable 
answer. As soon as I am come to the regiment, 
I see that the exercise be without too much trouble, 
and rather with ease, performed throughout all the 
ranks, and I speak to all the captains. When I 
am over-against those whose names I have retained, 
I speak to them freely, as likewise to all the 
lieutenants and sergeants : this gives me a wonder- 
ful fine air of memory and reflection. 

You saw, dear nephew, in what manner I 
mortified the major who used to furnish his com- 



58 The Confessions of 

pany with shirts too short ; I used him so ill, that 
one of the soldiers had the impudence, by way of 
shewing the scanty measure, to pull his shirt out 
of his breeches. 

If a regiment does not acquit itself of the exercise 
to my satisfaction, I have a kind of punishment 
for it that is not amiss; I order it to perform the 
exercise for thirteen days longer than usual, and 
ask none of the ofQcers to my table. If the 
manoeuvres are well executed, I have all the 
captains to dine with me, and even some of 
the lieutenants. 

By means, then, of the reviews being conducted 
in this manner, I come at a perfect knowledge 
of my troops; and when I find any officer that 
answers me with firmness, intelligence, and clear- 
ness, I set him down in my list for making use of 
his service on proper occasions. 

Hitherto it has been believed by the world that 
it is the stark love and kindness I bear to my 
subjects that engages me to visit my dominions 
as often as I possibly can. I like to leave that 
same world in quiet possession of that idea; but 
there enters very little of the reality of such a 
motive into that trouble I give myself; the truth 
is, that I am obliged to it, and this is the reason. 

My kingdom is despotic, consequently I, who 
am the possessor of it, am alone in charge of it. 
If I did not make, at times, a tour of inspection 
through my dominions, my governors would put 
themselves in my place, and would, little by little, 



Frederick the Great 59 

divest themselves of their principles of obedience, 
and adopt in their stead those of independence. 

Besides, as my orders cannot be other than 
stem and absolute, those who represent me would 
usurp the same tone of tyranny. Whereas, by 
visiting my kingdom from time to time, I am 
enabled to take cognizance of all the abuses that 
may have been committed of the powers intrusted 
by me, and to keep within the botinds of their 
duty such as might otherwise take it into their 
head to transgress them. 

Add to these reasons, that of making my sub- 
jects believe, that I come familiarly among them 
purely to receive their complaints, and to redress 
their grievances. 

ON LITERATURE 

I have done everything in my power to acqmre 
a reputation in literature, and, in that, have been 
more successful than Cardinal Richelieu, for, thank 
God, I pass for an author; but, between you and 
me, and not to let it go any farther, they are a 
damned set of people, those they call wits. They 
are insupportable for their vanity; insolent, de- 
spising the great, and yet fond of greatness: 
tyrants in their opinions, implacable enemies, 
inconstant friends, difficult to live with, and 
often flatterers and satirists in the same day. 
And yet, for all this, they are necessary beings to 
a prince who would reign despotically, and who 



6o The Confessions of 

loves glory. They are the dispensers of the 
honours of celebrity; without them, there is no 
acqtdring a solid reputation. They must, then, 
be caressed from our need of them, and recom- 
pensed from good policy. 

As this is a profession, or call it, if you will, 
a trade, that takes us off from the occupations 
worthy of the majesty of the throne, I never 
compose but when I have nothing better to do; 
and to give myself the more ease in it, I keep at 
my court some wits, who take care to put my 
ideas into order. 

You have seen with what distinction I treated 
Monsieur D'Alembert in his last visit here; I 
always set him at my table, and did nothing but 
praise him. You even seemed surprised at the 
great respect I shewed this author; but you do 
not know, perhaps, that this philosopher is listened 
to at Paris like an oracle ; that he talks of nothing 
else there but of my talents and my virtues; and 
that he maintains everywhere that I fulfil the 
character of a true hero and of a great king. 

Besides, there is a sort of pleasure to me, in 
hearing myself praised with wit and delicacy; 
and, to deal sincerely with you, I am far from 
being insensible to panegyric. I cannot dissemble 
to myself, that all my actions are not clearly praise- 
worthy; but D'Alembert is so good-natured, that, 
when he sits by me, he never opens his mouth but 
to say obliging things to me. 

Voltaire was not of so pliable a character; ac- 



Frederick the Great 6i 

cordingly I drove him from my court, of which 
I made a merit to Maupertuis, though the true 
reason at bottom was, that I stood in fear of him, 
because I was not sure that I could always humour 
his avarice, and knew perfectly well, that half-a- 
crown less than he expected would draw on me 
two thousand scratches from his satirical claws. 

Besides, everything well considered, and after 
having taken the advice of my academy, it was 
a clearly decided point that it was impossible for 
two wits to breathe the same air. 

I was forgetting to tell you, that in the midst 
of my greatest straits and disasters, I took care 
that the wits should have their pensions duly paid 
them. These philosophers exclaim against war as 
the most execrable of all madnesses the moment 
that it touches their pocket. 

CONDUCT IN THE SMALLER MATTERS OF LIFE 

Have you a mind to satisfy all the world at a 
very little cost? This is the secret. Let all your 
subjects have leave to apply to yourself directly 
by writing, or in personal audience; and, accord- 
ing as you admit of either of these, answer or hear 
what they have to say. But this is the style you 
are to employ: 

^* If what you tell me he true, I will do you justice; 
but you may also lay your account with the zeal I 
have for punishing calumny and falsity. I am your 
king, F ck, " 



62 The Confessions of 

If they complain, in person, to you, hear them 
with attention, or at least with an air that may 
make them think you have it. Let your answer 
especially be firm and laconic. Two letters, or 
two verbal answers, in such a style, will save you 
from the importunity of many complaints, and 
will give you among your own subjects, and more 
yet in foreign courts, such an air of simplicity, 
and of descending into particulars, as in point of 
character makes the fortune of kings. 

I am well assured, dear nephew, that on the 
credit of two letters of this kind, actually extant 
in those countries which the French took in 1757, 
I passed among them for a king the most popular, 
the most plain-dealing, and the most equitable, that 
ever was or could be. 

AS TO DRESS 

If my grandfather had lived twenty years more, 
we should have been an undone people, for his 
birthday would have devoured the kingdom. I 
never wear any coat but my uniform. The military 
imagine that this proceeds from the regard I have 
for their profession; but in fact it is to make my 
example enforce my preachments of simplicity of 
dress. My father was right in his notion of bring- 
ing in the blue for birthdays. 

Those who are not rich, and would appear well 
dressed, would do well to avoid the half -lace. One 
should leave embroidery, and the tawdry daubings 



Frederick the Great 63 

of gold and silver, to those idle, effeminate princes 
who live in the midst of nothing but pleasures, 
balls, and debauchery. There is a necessity for 
the frivolous to study every day some new fanciful 
taste in dress, that they may please the ladies, 
which they make their sole occupation. 

AS TO PLEASURES 

Love is a little deity that spares no one. When 
one resists those darts he lets fly at us in a fair way, 
he takes another turn; so that I would not wish 
you to have the vanity of making head against 
him. One way or other he is sure of you. Though 
I have not to complain of the trick he has played 
me, I would not advise you to follow my example. 
It might come in time to have very bad con- 
sequences; for, by degrees, your governors and 
officers would, in their choice of recruits, consult 
more their own pleasures than the honour of your 
service, and your army might come at length to be 
like the regiment of your imcle Henry. 

I should have liked himting well enough, but 
the accompt-expenses of my grandfather's grand 
huntsman corrected me of that inclination. 

My father has told me a hundred times, that 
there were but two kings in Europe rich enough to 
keep buck-hounds, because it is indecent for a 
crowned head to hunt with no more state than a 
private gentleman. 

Nature has given me self-indulgent-enough dis- 



64 The Confessions of 

positions. I love good eating, good wines, coffee, 
and even spirituous cordials, and yet my subjects 
believe me the most abstemious king in the uni- 
verse. When I eat in public, it is my German cook 
that dresses my dinner; but when I am snug in my 
little private apartments, I have a French cook 
who does his best to humour my palate, which, I 
must confess, is rather of the nicest. Philosophers 
may say what they will, with all their lessons, but 
the pleasures of the senses very well deserve that 
we should spare them a couple of hours a day; 
for, in fact, what would our existence be without 
them? 

I could take a pleasure in play, but I cannot 
bring myself to a habit of enduring to lose. Be- 
sides, play is the looking-glass of the soul; and 
this does not at all do for me, for I do not much 
care that anyone should look into mine. 

I love theatrical entertainments extremely, and 
especially music; but I find the Opera cursedly 
dear, and the pleasure I take in hearing a fine 
voice or a good violin would be much more lively 
and pure if it did not cost me so much money. 

As no one can be imposed upon as to this ex- 
pense, I have used my best endeavours to per- 
suade that it was useful and even necessary; but 
I never could get the old generals to come into the 
opinion, that an eunuch or a virtuoso ought to 
have the same pay as they. 

I will now give up to you the knowledge of man, 
though at his expense. Believe me, he is always 



Frederick the Great 65 

delivered up to his passions; vanity is at the bot- 
tom of all his thirst after glory, and his virtues 
are all founded on his self-interest and ambition. 
Have you a mind to pass for a hero ? Make boldly 
your approaches to crimes. Would you like to be 
thought virtuous? Learn to appear artfully what 
you are not. 
s 



MORNING THE FIFTH 

ON POLITICS OF THE STATE 

THESE politics may be reduced to three heads, 
or principles. The first, self-preservation, 
and aggrandizement, according to circumstances. 
Second, alliances never to be made but for one's 
own advantage. And the third, to make one's self 
respected and feared in the most difficult times. 

PRINCIPLE THE FIRST 
OF SELF-PRESERVATION AND AGGRANDIZEMENT 

On my ascending to the throne, I visited the 
coffers of my father. His great economy, I found, 
had put me in a condition of conceiving great 
projects. Soon afterwards I made a review of my 
troops, and fine ones they appeared to me: upon 
which I returned to my coffers, and took out of 
them wherewith to double my military force. 

As I had then just rendered my power twice as 
great as it was before, it was natural for me not 
to be contented with only preserving what I had, 
so that I was q,uickly determined to avail myself 
of the first opportunity that should offer. In the 
meanwhile I exercised my troops, and used my 

66 



Confessions of Frederick the Great 67 

best endeavours to draw the eyes of all Europe 
on my manoeuvres; I renewed them every year, 
in order to appear more and more master of the 
art of war; and at length I obtained my wish of 
procuring a general attention. 

I turned the head of all the powers, and all the 
world gave themselves up for lost, if their military 
did not move head, legs, and arms, a la mode of the 
Prussian exercise. All my soldiers and my officers 
took it into their heads that they were twice the 
men they were before on seeing they were every- 
where aped. 

When my troops had thus acquired an advan- 
tage over all the others, I had nothing to do but to 
examine what pretensions it was possible for me 
to form upon different provinces. Four different 
points offered themselves to my view: Silesia, 
Polish Prussia, Dutch Gueldre and Swedish Pome- 
rania. 

I fixed, however, on Silesia, both because that 
object deserved my attention more than all the 
others put together, and because the circumstances 
were more favourable to me. 

I left to time the care of the execution of my 
projects on the other points. I will not here 
enter on a demonstration to you of the validity of 
my pretensions on Silesia, I took care to have it 
established by my orators. The empress-queen 
opposed hers to them, and the cause was pleaded 
and decided by great guns, small arms, and sabres. 
But let me return to those favourable circum- 



68 The Confessions of 

stances I intimated: thus it was that they pre- 
sented themselves. France wanted to take the 
empire out of the hands of the House of Austria : — 
there was nothing I wished for more. France also 
had a mind to form in Italy a state for the Infant : 
— this too I liked, because it could not be done but 
at the expense of the empress-queen. In short, 
France had conceived the noble project of march- 
ing to the gates of Vienna: — that was the very 
point I waited for, that I might seize upon Silesia. 

Be then, my dear nephew, provided of money; 
wait for circumstances; and be assured of not 
barely preserving your dominions, but of aggran- 
dizing them. There are certain small politicians 
who pretend, that, when a state is arrived at a 
certain point, it ought not to think of aggrandize- 
ment, because the system of the balance of power 
has limited each state to a certain fixed extent. 

I remember that the ambition of Lewis XlVth 
had like to have cost France dear, and I am not 
insensible of all the disquiet that mine has given 
me : I know, also, that France, in the midst of her 
greatest disasters, disposed of a crown, and pre- 
served the provinces she had conquered; and 
you may, as to myself, see, that, amidst all the 
storm that threatened me, I have lost nothing; 
so that everything depends on the circumstances 
of the times, and on the courage of him that takes 
and holds. 

You cannot, my dear nephew, conceive how 
important it is for a king and a state to go often 



Frederick the Great 69 

out of the common road; it is only by the mar- 
vellous that one can strike an awe into others, or 
get a great name. 

The Balance is a word that has subdued the 
whole world, by the light in which it was con- 
sidered of its securing a constant possession; 
and yet, in truth, this same Balance is no more 
than a bare word, an empty sound; for Europe 
is a family in which there are too many bad brokers 
and quarrelsome relations. 

I go farther yet, dear nephew : it is by the con- 
tempt of this system that one must come at any- 
thing that is great. Behold the English, they 
have put the sea in chains; that fierce unruly 
element no longer dares carry any vessels but 
with their permission. 

From all this, it results, that it is good policy to 
be always attempting something, and to be per- 
fectly persuaded that we have a right to everything 
that suits us. 

You must only take care not to make, with too 
much vanity, too open a proclamation of such 
pretensions; and especially to maintain at your 
court two or three persons of eloquence, and leave 
it in charge with them to justify you. 

PRINCIPLE THE SECOND 
ON ALLIANCES 

To form alliances for one's advantage is a great 
maxim of state, and there are no powers that can 



70 The Confessions of 

answer to themselves a neglect of it. Thence, by 
clear inference, it follows, that you should break 
an alliance as soon as ever it becomes prejudicial 
to you. 

In my first war with the Queen of Hungary, I 
abandoned France at Prague, because I got Silesia 
by the bargain. If I had escorted the French 
safe to Vienna, they would never have given me 
so much. Some years after I renewed with them, 
because I had a mind to attempt the conquest of 
Bohemia, and thought it best to keep measures 
with this power, against I might have occasion for 
its assistance. Since that time I have neglected 
that nation, in order to come in with another 
that offered me more. 

When Prussia, dear nephew, shall have made 
her fortune, it will be time enough for her to give 
herself an air of fidelity to engagements and of 
constancy; an air, which, at the most, becomes 
none but great states or little sovereigns. I have 
already, dear nephew, told you that politics and 
villainy are almost synonymous terms, and I told 
you the truth. And yet you will, on this head, 
find some people who have formed to themselves 
certain systems of probity; so that you may 
hazard anything by means of your ambassadors. 
I have found some that have served me in very 
delicate occasions, and who, to come at a mystery, 
would have rummaged or picked the pockets of 
a king. 

Let your choice fall especially on those who have 



Frederick the Great 71 

the talent of expressing themselves in vague, 
indefinite, terms, or in squinting and perplexed 
phrases. You would not do amiss to have at your 
devotion some political physicians and locksmiths ; 
they may sometimes be of great use to you. I 
know, by experience, all the advantages that may 
be gained by their means. 

PRINCIPLE THE THIRD 
OF INSPIRING RESPECT AND FEAR 

To make one's self respected and feared by one's 
neighbours is the very summit of high policy. 
This end is to be achieved by two means: — the 
first, is to have a real force and effectual resources; 
— the second, is to make the most of the strength 
one has. — Now we are not within the first case, 
and that is the reason of my having neglected 
nothing that might make me shine in the second. 

There are powers who imagine that an embassy 
should always be sent with great splendour, and 
cut a great figure. Monsieur de Richelieu, how- 
ever, only served at Vienna to put the French 
into a ridiculous light; for the Austrians con- 
cluded, that the whole nation smelt as strong of 
musk and amber as he that represented it. 

As for me, I rather hold that it is more by the 
noble manner in which an ambassador makes his 
master speak, than by the parade of his equipages 
or retinue, that he gains a true or valuable respect; 



72 The Confessions of 

— ^it is for this reason that I propose never more 
to employ ambassadors, but only envoys. Besides, 
the first of these characters is too difficult to fill 
suitably, as it requires a man of great note or 
distinction, very rich, and who understands politics 
perfectly; whereas, with this last advantage only, 
an envoy may serve sufficiently for the purpose. 

By adopting this system, you will every year 
save a considerable sum, and your business will 
be as well done. There are, however, some occa- 
sions, in which it is necessary to show away with 
some magnificence; as, for example, when you 
come to a rupture with a court, or make an alliance, 
or for a nuptial ceremony. But these embassies 
must be ever considered as extraordinary. 

Never ask faintly, but seem rather to demand. 
If you have any cause of discontent given you, 
reserve your revenge for the moment in which you 
may obtain the most complete satisfaction, but 
especially do not stand in fear of reprisals; your 
glory will not suffer for it, it will only be so much 
the worse for those of your subjects on whom 
the damage may fall. It must, then, be your great 
aim that all your neighbours should be persuaded 
that you fear nothing, and that nothing can as- 
tonish you. 

Endeavour, above all things, to pass with them 
for one of a dangerous cast of mind, who knows no 
other principles but those that lead to military 
fame. Manage so that they may be fully con- 
vinced that you would sooner lose two kingdoms 



Frederick the Great 73 

than not play a part that may transmit you to 
posterity. As these sentiments are those of a 
soul above the common order, they strike, they 
confound, the greatest part of mankind; and it 
is this that, in truth, constitutes in the world the 
greatest monarchs. 

When a stranger comes to your court, overwhelm 
him with civilities, and especially try to have 
him always near you ; this will be the best way to 
keep concealed from him the defects of your 
government. 

If he is a military man, let the exercise of your 
regiments be performed before him, and let it be 
yourself that commands them. If he is a wit who 
has composed a work, let him see it lying on your 
table, and talk to him of his talents. If he is in a 
mercantile life, listen to him with affability, caress 
him, and try to fix him in your country. 



MORNING THE SIXTH 

MILITARY 

A CELEBRATED author has compared the 
mihtary to mastiffs which ought to be 
chained up carefully, and ought not to be loosed 
except when necessary. The comparison is rather 
strained, but, for all that, it will serve you, not as a 
maxim, but as a warning. 

You have been able to learn in the two cam- 
paigns which you have made with me the spirit of 
officer and soldier, and you have been able to per- 
ceive that in general they are veritable machines, 
with no other forward movement than that which 
you give them. 

You persuade these troops that they are superior 
to those whom you oppose to them; a mere no- 
thing makes them believe that they are weaker; 
it is, however, these nothings which make the 
glory or disgrace of a general. 

Therefore apply yourself to get a good know- 
ledge of the causes which produce them. I go 
further, and say that it is the nothings which create 
the enthusiasm, and if once you can confer it on 
your army, you can count on victory. 

I will not recall here that which you will have 
74 



Confessions of Frederick the Great 75 

noticed in history, but remember only the Rus- 
sians, and you will acknowledge that only inspired 
beasts could stand being slaughtered like them. 

My kingdom, by its nature, is military, and, 
shortly speaking, it is only by its assistance that 
you can hope to sustain and aggrandize your- 
self. It is necessary, therefore, that your atten- 
tion should always be fixed on this. But you 
must take care that the military should not per- 
ceive that they are your only resoiu"ce. When I 
took over the reins of Government, I looked into 
this to the bottom, and corrected it ; but it was not 
without much trouble that I arrived at the goal 
of my design, for your officer does not readily bend 
to new regulations, above all when it touches his 
own personal interest. You can judge of this by 
two examples. 

The captains had each a district (canton) for 
recruiting. Every male infant who was born in 
that canton was by right his captain's soldier, and 
was registered as such from the cradle. 

It is true that his father could buy him out, 
but if that captain happened to die, the buying out 
was annulled, and the infant became once more by 
right the soldier of the new captain. 

You understand well what authority this captain 
exercised in this unhappy canton; he became its 
tyrant. 

During the lifetime of my father I was several 
times offended with this, and when I became the 
Master, I resolved to abolish such an oppression. 



76 The Confessions of 

However, you must not offend the old soldiers who 
know nothing but their routine, above all, when 
it is advantageous to them. 

I amassed proofs, therefore, and soon had more 
than I wanted. They showed me, among others, 
that Captain Colan, of the Regiment of Opo (in- 
fantry), had drawn from his canton in ten years 
more than fifty thousand crowns, and they made 
me see that there was in general no captain who 
did not derive a revenue of two thousand crowns 
from the cotmtry under him. 

Accordingly, I reformed this abuse, but, believe 
me, most of my generals wished to prove to me 
that it was a great advantage for me, because by 
it one was surer of training a soldier as one wished, 
and one knew his character from his infancy. And, 
in fine, a thousand other like stupidities. 

Believe me, also, that in spite of the most abso- 
lute orders, there were majors who always went 
this way, and that I was obliged to cashier two or 
three who would not submit. 

My father had a passion for tall men : he adored 
the captains who got most of them : it was enough 
for a soldier to be six feet two or three inches 
for him to be allowed to do anything, and a captain 
who had twenty of this height was sure to enjoy 
the good graces of the King. From this sprang 
a lax and very variable discipline, and a service 
of parade. 

As I did not have the same taste, I did not make 
any exceptions. I wished the tall to be punished 



Frederick the Great 77 

in the same way as the short: I only took into 
consideration the goodness of the soldier, and not 
his height. This conduct displeased my officers 
very much, as well as my giants. The former were 
alarmed by the desertions, which, in truth, were 
then considerable. Because the great statures 
were not respected, they had even the effrontery 
to tell me that a man of six feet two or three 
inches deserved consideration, and ought not to be 
subjected to ordinary discipHne. I asked them the 
reason for it: they did not know what to reply: 
in consequence of which the difference soon ceased 
to exist. 

You can see by these two examples how much 
the particular interest is reckoned above the gen- 
eral interest, and at the same time the attention 
which you ought to pay to the representations 
of the military, when you touch their pockets. 

You must take great care, my dear nephew, not 
to confuse the word discipline: it is a word which 
can only draw its signification from the spirit of 
the faculties and the situation in the state of 
which you employ it. It means that each state 
ought to have its special discipHne, and it is mad 
for it to wish to adopt that of its neighbour. I 
am going to make you understand this by my own 
position. 

A very wise regulation made by my father was 
the foiindation of our modem discipline. Listen 
to it well. Following this rule each captain is 
obliged to have two thirds of his company foreign- 



78 The Confessions of 

ers. But to make these foreigners feel more like 
citizens, and to make their lot, which is really 
rather an unhappy one, since they have no hope of 
seeing it finish, pleasanter, we have thought that 
we ought to bestow upon these poor people that 
air of freedom and authority over the rest of man- 
kind which they like to assume. 

And in consequence we do not pay much atten- 
tion to the little tricks which they play in the 
garrisons: we grant them in this respect a sort 
of independence which makes them forget their 
misfortunes: they think themselves somebodies, 
and this idea alone saves them from despair. 

This discipline does not agree badly with my 
subjects who are soldiers: by this means they 
contract an advantageous idea of their trade, and 
little by little they accustom themselves to regard 
it as a profession. 

We believe that discipline alone constitutes a 
soldier. We are mistaken; it is oftener the tone 
which we give him: I have proved this in my 
recent wars, where I had not already done so in 
my former wars. 

The armies of the Empire and Sweden filled my 
ranks every day, and these men had no sooner 
donned my uniform than they were Prussians, 
and in the first encounter one could only recognize 
them by their singular valour. Discipline itself 
must be subordinate to such circumstances, it 
could not be so good if it was always equal. 

When I commenced war my troops recognized 



Frederick the Great 79 

me, and most of my soldiers loved me, because I 
paid them, fed them and entertained them well. 
At the same time, I was severe, and expected my 
orders to be executed with the utmost rigour; I 
passed nothing, especially when they were under 
arms. 

After two campaigns I changed this severity for 
pleasantness. I had nothing but deserters for 
recruiting my army. I could neither pay them 
nor feed them nor maintain them well. I was 
obliged to pay them in debased money. It was 
my belief that I ought to attach them to myself by 
some means at some point. I tried to inspire 
them with an air of jollity, and relaxed my hand on 
marauding: I pretended not to mind when they 
took the roof off a house to make their fires, and 
I spared no effort to make them think well of 
themselves; I shut my eyes to many small negli- 
gences in their service; I only punished them 
lightly. When a regiment played up a little too 
much, I sent it to Saxony, and my brother Henry, 
who was in the secret, put matters on a proper 
footing, because his army was only engaged in 
observation. 

Your principal object, my dear nephew, ought 
to be to create good officers and good generals, 
so you ought to make a plan of discipline, and 
still more, of conduct for them. Behold what I 
have done up to the present in this line. 

In time of peace as well as in time of war, I go 
into the smallest details with them. Every officer 



8o The Confessions of 

is under the belief that he is known to me person- 
ally, and there is no general with whom I am not 
in relation. Although they play the chief role in 
my dominions, they are no more than the head 
slaves. An officer and a general cannot leave his 
post without proper permission; and if either did 
leave it without my permission, it is a hanging 
matter. By this means, when I have a valuable 
man, I keep him always. 

The most fortunate officers have three years of 
misery and humiliation to go through (at the 
beginning of their careers). Of misery because 
they have wretched appointments, and of humilia- 
tion because the discipline is terrible. To recom- 
pense them, I make their lot very honourable when 
they come to the higher ranks. But, even then, 
they have no chance of retiring. 

In the present war I have not named one of 
them to a command, to a provincial governorship 
or a headquarters' appointment which has fallen 
vacant. To give my officers ambition, I give them 
great distinction for brilliant performances. In 
the battle of Rosbach I embraced a cavalry major 
in the middle of the action, and I conferred the 
Order of True Merit on an officer in the field. At 
Dresden I sent my carriage for the lieutenant in 
the Guards who had been wounded after having 
attacked the same entrenchment four times. And 
I gave him his company. 

To inspire them with a contempt for death, I 
had the famous ode of General Keith recited to 



Frederick the Great 8i 

them, and I had the libre avoitre preached to them 
all through the war. 

While I had the money I paid them well, and 
when my resources were diminished, I debased the 
coinage. But I overlooked some of the little 
tricks which they played upon their hosts, when 
times became harder, and I let them be witnesses 
of my misfortimes; I gave them the idea that 
their constancy was the only thing which could res- 
cue us from our embarrassments, which have really 
been very lamentable in the latest campaigns. 

I do not know how I succeeded in reducing to 
the greatest exactitude in the army those who 
were regular bandits, and who had an air of the 
greatest arrogance. I appeared to inspire them 
with a way of thinking to suit the circumstances. 
They were Arabs who crushed the country but won 
the battles. 

The same spirit animated, more or less, the 
general officers: I closed my eyes to all the op- 
pressions which they committed ; they worked for 
me in working for themselves. In which way 
it was necessary that we should live together. 
Everyone told me that Major Keller, the Com- 
mandant at Leipzig, was feathering his nest. I 
knew it well, but other people did not know that 
he was worth millions a year to me. 

As one gets accustomed little by little to his 
ease, and as one learns more and more how to live 
well, I had generals who were not too anxious to 
seek glory in the heat of the fray. I knew them 



82 The Confessions of 

well, and I explained to them generally the neces- 
sity of showing themselves well and confronting 
the greatest dangers. I preached by shewing them 
the way, and made two or three examples. From 
this moment everybody was dauntless. 

When you give a command, leave nothing to 
be brought home by your generals: confer an air 
of superiority always on the Profession of Arms. 
But always attribute to your generals the disaster 
of a battle, or the disastrous result of a campaign. 

You have seen how I punished Le Kizel^ and 
Fink^ for the surrender at Maxin, Zartroit^ for the 
surrender at Schweidnitz, and Roule"* for having 
advised the surrender of the citadel of Gratz.^ 
In point of fact, none of these were their fault: 
they were mine. 

You are not, my dear nephew, in a position to 
exercise a very rigorous discipline, and you are 
obliged to avoid increasing the yoke; real men 
are rare in your dominions, and foreigners cost too 
much for you to take them. You need not alter 
the administration of justice in your regiments, 
but you should make the death penalty very rare. 
Make your surgeons observe the same principles 
as I have impressed upon them, with regard to 
the arms and legs of your soldiers and your officers. 

Do not demand from a subaltern anything more 
than good routine, because you have no need for 

^ A misspelling which cannot be identified. * Should be 
FiNCK. 3 Should be Zastrow. * Should be Fouquet. s Should 
be Glatz. 



Frederick the Great 83 

him to know anything more. But demand from 
a higher officer genius and theory; and, above all, 
make a point of not confusing details with great 
principles, and especially make a great difference 
between a good quartermaster and a great general, 
because you can be one without being the other. 

I am now coming to the point of my theories 
about common soldiers and subaltern officers. It 
is a question now of laying before your eyes the 
ideas I have maintained in my recent campaigns. 

When I saw that France, the Queen of Hungary 
(Maria Theresa) and Russia were against me, I 
abandoned half my dominions in order to concen- 
trate and put myself in a condition to be able 
to invade Saxony. 

This manoeuvre was universally attributed to a 
fine stroke of politics. It was really due to neces- 
sity, because I should none the less have lost all 
my dominions if I have been crushed in defending 
them. 

Before the commencement of the war I laid down 
a system which I have never abandoned: I have 
always hung on with the greatest obstinacy to 
part of Saxony: and though I have been sur- 
rounded on all sides, I have never been willing to 
retire from this country, and I was well advised, 
for I should have been lost without power of 
recovery. 

I know well that it is considered extraordinary 
that I have allowed Berlin to be laid under contri- 
bution twice, and that all the towns in my kingdom, 



84 The Confessions of 

except five or six, have been taken. But every- 
thing has been given back to me, as the price of 
retiring from Saxony. 

If you were to consult my subjects at the present 
moment, I believe that you would find that the 
enthusiasm is a little dwindled. I am persuaded 
myself that they have long ago begun to reckon the 
obligations of a prince to his subjects. 

I had made the late war as a pupil. Marshal 
d'Anhalt^ and Marshal de Schwerin gave battle; 
I only figured in the battles. In this campaign 
my amour propre had desired to play the leading 
part. I had need of Marshal Schwerin ; I felt that 
he was necessary; but I was jealous of his glory. 
It is certain that if he had not been killed, I should 
have been ungrateful. 

People pay me, my dear nephew, a little more 
honour than I deserve. For since his death I 
have made several bad mistakes. I lost the battle 
of Kollin and raised the siege of Prague quite un- 
necessarily; I made a false move when I arrived 
in Moravia, and Marshal Daun, like a good Gen- 
eral, had secured Olmiitz before he left Vienna. 

At Maxin I lost fifteen thousand men by pig- 
headedness, and ignorance, because I did not see 
that Marshal Daun had advanced with his army. 

General Laudon profited by a false move which 
I made to take me in the- flank at Schweidnitz; 
I let him crush poor Fouquet before Glatz. 

I should have lost the battle of Torgau if Mar- 

* Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau — the old Dessauer. 



Frederick the Great 85 

shal Daun had not been wounded, and the Russians 
have beaten me three times out of four; I have 
never been able to retake Dresden; and I have 
been fifty-nine days in the open trenches before 
Schweidnitz. 

For all that, I am a general, and no one could 
dispute that I have great abilities, for, if I have 
lost battles, I have won them also, and I have 
niade retreats which have won me infinite honour ; 
I have discovered admirable expedients for extri- 
cating myself from the most cruel embarrassments. 

But, my dear nephew, what has saved me is my 
desperateness and my vanity. I have preferred 
to be buried under the ruins of my kingdom to 
yielding, and it is my obstinacy which has worn 
everyone out. A man can try this once, but if he 
is wise he does not expose himself to it a second 
time. 

At present, while I am in cold blood, I see all my 
glory vanishing in smoke; I have made a noise, 
but what have I gained? Nothing! On the con- 
trary, I have lost much since the election of the 
King of the Romans has taken place. 

You know the ambition of our house, and I 
assure you that I shall die of grief if I do not 
make the Empire pass to some Protestant Prince. 

But what afflicts me most is the state of affairs 
in my own dominions. When I compare the situa- 
tion of my kingdom in '56 with its situation to- 
day, I am confounded. I must lay it before you 
in order that, in advance, you may come to the 



86 The Confessions of 

resolution of sacrificing everything to re-establish 
it. 

Since '56 I have lost by fighting more than three 
hundred thousand men. The population is de- 
creased by more than one third, the number of 
horses and other animals by more than a half; 
the treasure accumulated by my father has been 
consumed, and my coinage is debased by one 
tenth. All the Provinces pay twice as heavily as 
they did in '56, by the interest of the money which 
they have been obliged to borrow for the contribu- 
tions of which it is impossible for me to keep count. 

I have no commerce outside of my kingdom, 
because my money loses too much in exchange 
abroad, and the bankruptcy of M. Donenville has 
made me lose all my credit. 

The majority of my magazines are empty, my 
artillery is very bad, and I have very few muni- 
tions of war left; it is this which determines me 
to demolish most of my fortifications: for I am 
no longer in a condition to put the places which 
I have abandoned in a state of defence. 

Otherwise, in a moment, if I were to come to 
have war, it would be absolutely impossible for 
me to guard them. 

You see by this that you have no more than one 
step to take to be ruined, and that would be to 
undertake a new war, for however glorious it might 
be for you, it would crush you. 

The only way of re-establishing yourself is to 
make an alliance with England to pay you heavy 



Frederick the Great 87 

subsidies to conduct the campaign, and to keep 
within your borders as long as possible. 

It would not be a question of waging an offensive 
war; you would no longer be in a condition to 
reassemble large armies, because you could not 
supply them either with provisions or with muni- 
tions of war. It would only, therefore, be in the 
last extremity that you ought to advance. 

In what situation would you find yourself, if 
your dominions were once more the prey of the 
enemy? How would your dominions pay in the 
future the interest on the contributions they had 
borrowed? To what extent would your people 
not suffer, and how far would the deficiency in 
animals not go? 

As for me, I cannot resist the sad ideas which 
this picture presents to me. I know the reputa- 
tion which I bear throughout Europe, of loving 
war, and I confess that it is my passion, but I 
know its calamities, and I yield to the evidence. 
It is not possible to do this, because I should risk 
the entire ruin of my dominions. 

I pretend to be wicked, but I do it to impose 
on others. One is not lucky twice, or, to put it 
better, fortune becomes greedy when one demands 
too much. She would certainly not be sufficiently 
generous to rescue our house a second time from 
the abyss in which it found itself in '57 and '61. 

In '57, in the month of October, the French 
were at the gates of Magdeburg; the Austrians 
had Schweidnitz and Breslau, the Russians had 



88 The Confessions of 

all Prussia, and part of Brandenburg, and the 
Swedes had nearly all Pomerania. Berlin had 
been made to pay a ransom, and all my allies were 
prisoners. 

Rossbach saved me at the edge of the precipice, 
and the affair of Breslau removed me further back 
from it for a year. 

In '58 the Russians had my kingdom in their 
hands for three days: if I had unluckily yielded, 
I should have been lost irretrievably. 

At the end of '61, in the month of November, 
Colberg being taken, the Russians were masters 
of the road to Berlin; the Austrians with the 
possession of Schweidnitz and Glatz could dispose 
of Silesia; the French, with the occupation of 
Hesse, shut me in on the side of Franconia; and 
Marshal Daun had more than half of Saxony; I 
scarcely had enough room for quartering my 
troops. 

Add to this situation the lack of money and 
clothing for my troops, and, what is worse, the lack 
of provisions. At this critical moment the Em- 
press of Russia came to die. ^ If it had been I who 
had frightened her into it, the thing could not have 
happened more opportunely. 

At the peace, like everyone, I made reforms, 
but I did not follow the order of seniority. I dis- 
missed all the officers whom I suspected of being 
bad — I have already told you that I had over- 

' Peter III, an admirer of Frederick's, recalled the Russian 
army directly the Empress Elizabeth died. 



Frederick the Great 89 

looked man^ things while campaigning, but I had 
recorded on my tablets all their bad actions, and 
when I no longer had any need of them, I made a 
crime for them out of that which I had appeared to 
treat as a petty trouble. 

That is, approximately, my way of thinking 
about the military, and the way in which I have 
treated it. Now let us talk a little about pro- 
visioning armies. 

Provisioning is so legitimate, or, rather, so 
necessary for an army, that it is impossible for the 
latter to exist without the former, but it is a great 
question how far one ought to occupy oneself 
with it. 

After mature reflection upon the subject, I have 
made the following system. I have accustomed 
my soldiers to do without bread, meat, and wine, 
and I have allowed them to get their subsistence 
from the peasants, and I have made no commis- 
sariat except when I could not do otherwise. 

Since everything was under the Administration, 
every economy was to my profit. When a regi- 
ment arrived at a town, the citizens were obliged 
to support it for several days. I divided the 
profits with my soldiers. I gave them three sous 
and I kept back two, for the bread which they 
had to take from my magazines. 

When an army was advancing and it did with- 
out bread for a day, it was so much profit to me. 
By this arrangement I gained not only sometimes 
as much as six weeks' provisions in a year, but 



90 The Confessions of 

I could also risk forced marches, because I need 
not fear that doing without bread for one or two 
days would make the army complain. 

When you raise the provisioning to a certain 
level, you cannot move one step without great 
difficulty, because, before making a move, you 
have to think of provisioning. Whereas, when 
the soldier is properly broken in, he himself be- 
comes careful; he does not eat all he has, except 
when he is sure of being newly provided for, and 
by this means the general is much less harassed in 
his operations. 

I should never have been able to make the forced 
marches which I have made, if I had not risked 
one or two days' provisioning, and if my soldiers 
had not been persuaded that one can live without 
bread and meat. 

You would not believe, my dear nephew, the 
advantage which you have when an army is accus- 
tomed to this uncertainty. The general need not 
abuse it, but he can profit by it at moments which 
are decisive. 

In not paying serious attention, except in neces- 
sary cases, to the provisioning of the soldier, the 
air of importance which makes it so expensive is 
eliminated. 

I do not say, however, my dear nephew, that 
you ought not to regard this matter as one of the 
essentials, but you ought to know how to profit 
by the moment for treating it with a sort of in- 
difference. 



Frederick the Great 91 

I do not speak to you of Engineering or Artillery, 
because, unfortunately, these two branches are 
still in their infancy with us. We have not suf- 
ficient resources to put them on a good footing. 
You cannot, under any pretext whatever, dispense 
with your presence at the head of your troops, 
because two thirds of your soldiers could not be 
inspired by any other influence except your 
presence. Since your situation does not permit 
you to have a well supplied army, you ought to be 
present to profit by everything. It is following 
out this principle that as soon as I have entered 
any country I treat it as if I had conquered it. 

I went through Franconia and the Cote de 
Neuberg; in the contributions^ which I levied I 
often took, in place of money, cloth, or shoes, 
leather, flour, everything, down to peas and beans. 
Everything is good, my dear nephew, when you 
have a use to make of it. You ought not to be 
under any illusion as to the past. Events have 
made me great, more than my talents or my 
forces. 

The faults of the French founded my glory: 
the corruption of the Russian generals kept it 
up for some time, and the divisions between the 
Austrian generals have nourished it to the end. 
When you are lucky, the arms which are opposed 
to you turn to your profit. 

Without the armies of the Empire and Sweden 

' The German army still levies contributions in kind as at 
Ghent. 



92 Confessions of Frederick the Great 

I should never have been able to shew mine. It 
was a real God-send for me. I had thrown such 
ridicule on these two nations that the soldiers who 
had any feeling felt themselves dishonoured by- 
serving them. 



MORNING THE SEVENTH 

CONCERNING FINANCE 

NOTHING is so easy, my dear nephew, as to 
put finance on an honest footing, and no- 
thing renders it tolerable, except the tone which one 
gives to it. It is in this that I find that my pre- 
decessors have conceived very well in creating 
the Land Courts. There you have a jurisdiction 
which appears to have no other function than that 
of adjusting the interests of the King and of his 
subjects, whereas, in reaHty, it thinks only of the 
former. For this reason, all the offices in any way 
appertaining to it are regarded as necessary, and 
it appears as if the financier had been overlooked 
in favour of the man who is useful to the King. 

My kingdom pays as much, in proportion, as 
any other, and the taxes on it are very numerous, 
since my revenues are derived from Crown Lands, 
Woods, Mills, Subsidies, Tithes, Ferry-dues, Tolls, 
Salt, Fisheries, Game-Hcences, Stamped-paper, 
Stamp-Office and Registration of Deeds, Great and 
Little Seals, Forfeiture of Estate, Taxes on Em- 
ployment, Excise — which includes the rights over 
every kind of commodity in general, coming into 
the towns, whether necessaries or luxuries, and 

93 



94 The Confessions of 

over all merchandise — the duty of billeting soldiers, 
the money for recruits, and finally, the men and 
horses for the artillery. 

In spite of this multiplication of taxes, which 
are exacted with the utmost rigour, my subjects 
do not complain, because everything is done in 
my name, and care is taken to give to my repre- 
sentatives a certain social position. 

There are authors who have advanced the theory 
that it is a part of kingly policy to farm out all 
sources of revenue, because, by this means, the 
hatred of the people is diverted to the collectors 
(farmers) alone. But these authors have not 
considered that the hatred recoils little by little 
upon the protector of these agents. 

For a true comprehension of finance, you should 
read the Memorial prepared by the Royal Council 
of my father, upon the demise of my grandfather. 

The Memorial of the Council 

The King enquires how, without overburdening his 
subjects, he can extinguish a debt of thirty millions? 

Finance is the Monster of the fable. In every State 
contempt of it is a point of honour, yet in every State 
it is the object of the greatest courtship and flattery. 
This contradiction inflicts considerable wrong upon 
the governing Princes. 

We must discover the truth in everything, and to 
this end let us examine this Monster. 

What is Finance? 

It is the collection of the revenues of a State, or else 
the expenditure of these same revenues. 



Frederick the Great 95 

In whose name are these revenues collected or ex- 
pended? 

In the King's name. 

Whom does the King employ for the raising or 
expending the revenues? 

His subjects. 

What sort of subjects has the King to choose for this 
work? 

Honest men. 

Are honest men to be despised? 

No. 

Why then are financiers despised? 

Because they are not honest. 

Whose fault is this? 

That is the great problem which certainly will em- 
barrass your Ministers. 

What results from all this? 

That you have need of revenues and of men to raise 
them, and that it behoves Your Majesty to choose 
them well. 



Two points of view in general regulate the conduct of 
men: honour and interest. On all the occasions when 
it is possible to pay them with honour, it is so much 
gain over interest. This is therefore a coinage of 
which a prince should make as much use as possible. 
But since in a well-regulated State the different cur- 
rencies ought not to be confused, it is essential to give 
to this coinage the degrees of valuation proper to it. 
For the money of this metal bestowed upon a General 
must not be the same in form as that presented to the 
premier merchant of the realm. 



96 The Confessions of 

In order to carry out this project, we have formu- 
lated the following plan : 

We desire that there shall no longer be any forms of 
tax-farming in our kingdom : 

(i) Because they are useless to us, and utterly 
opposed to our interests. 

(2) Because they come with too much authority 
between us and our subjects. 

(3) Because they prevent us from knowing the true 
condition of things with regard to our revenues and to 
our subjects themselves. 

(4) Because the gains brought about by them in- 
crease luxury, and corrupt manners; excite the great 
to indignation, and vex the populace. 

(5) Finally, because they are opposed to the project 
we have formed of imparting a certain lustre to every- 
thing connected, directly or indirectly, with our 
finances. 



In order to prove to you the more completely the 
uselessness of these farmers-general, we will show you 
that three-fourths of them are not, and never could 
be, useful people, not only because they are without 
credit of themselves, but also because their funds are 
the property of the public. As to their abilities, the 
only skill allowed them by their state is that of stoutly 
maintaining their rights. 

As for scruples, we have not yet been fortunate 
enough to find a company which has said to us: "We 
were mistaken when we made such and such an 
agreement with Your Majesty. We were reckoning 
for a gain of 20 per cent., and we have found that 
it amounted to 72 per cent." 



Frederick the Great 97 

If our farmers-general were only useless to us, it 
would yet be possible at a pinch to make use of their 
services, but, unfortunately, they are absolutely op- 
posed to our interests, not only on account of the gains 
they make off us, but chiefly because they are the cause 
of our paying a huge interest. We will explain this 
to you in a few words. 

We have calculated the amount of interest which we 
have paid to various companies for the past ten years, 
and we have found that the sum total amounts to 
sixty millions of livres. These companies were pos- 
sessed of little or no capital, in consequence of which 
they have been obliged to borrow the funds for the 
advances which they have made to us at different 
times. 

From whom have they borrowed? 

From the public. 

Why did the public lend to them? 

Because they paid five to six per cent. 

Why did they pay five to six per cent.? 

Because the King gave ten per cent., and the same 
money brought them in a further fifteen per cent, of 
profit. 

Why did the King give them ten per cent. ? 

Because they came between the King and his sub- 
jects, and by this means drew all the money to them- 
selves. 

Why did they draw all the money to themselves? 

Because the public prefers to do business with indi- 
viduals who are making big profits rather than with 
the King. 

It is certain, therefore, that when there is no middle- 
man, the King will be the recipient of the interest on 
the money? 
7 



98 The Confessions of 

Yes, without doubt, and we may conclude with 
certainty that the King has paid at least thirty mil- 
lions too much on these sixty millions. 

We have no need to strengthen our case with further 
arguments; you know its soundness, and you will 
admit that the Ministers of the King my father have 
been much more than foolish. In effect, they have 
not been content with abandoning large profits on the 
revenues of the King, but they have further paid 
interest as if they had not had the smallest resources. 
One might say that they permitted the financiers to 
treat their master much in the same way that money- 
lenders treat minors of good family, with this difference 
only, that the King has been obliged to enrich those 
from whom he wished to borrow, whereas the minors 
of good family have not altogether the same vigilance 
as the usurers. 

Here is a scheme for execution in every part of our 
revenue, the administration of which has appeared to 
us injurious to our interests. 

Subsidies 

This tax cannot be further extended, since in 
reality we take more than a third of the revenue. 
Neither could it be assessed with greater justice, since 
it has been settled according to the register of the 
general survey of lands; the only question, therefore, 
is as to its collection. 

This impost was originally regarded as a voluntary 
contribution, one at the same time necessary for the 
maintenance of the State. It was money which was 
not destined for the coffers of the King, but only for 
those of the Government; for which reason the State 



Frederick the Great 99 

itself had sought the least costly methods of raising 
the tax. 

Then came the creation of the offices of Receivers- 
General and of Local Receivers. These were given 
rights of commission on the funds, they were allowed 
to charge collection expenses, and in some measure 
they received absolute authority over this section. 

To remedy the abuses which have followed the 
changes, we have enquired of every province what 
subsidies and tithes it contributed, including costs, 
and we have verified the amounts paid into our trea- 
sury. The province of Minden has sent us the sub- 
joined Memorandum. 

MEMORANDUM 

The Province of Minden has paid to the King: — 

livres. livres. 

In Subsidy 550,000 

Expenses 15,000 

565,000 

Costs to the King upon this: — 

Paid to Receiver-General of the Province: 

(i) In Appointments 6,000 

(2) In Commission at one-half per cent. 8,250* 
To four Local Receivers of the Pro- 
vince : 

(3) In Appointments at 1,500 livres 

each 6,000 

(4) In Commission at one-half per 

cent 8,250* 

(5) In Expenses on account of de- 

layed payments 15,000 

43.500 

Net Remainder for the King 521,500 

'The king's arithmetic in this memorandum is absolutely 
unintelligible. 



icx) The Confessions of 

Thus far the evil does not appear great, but this is 
what renders it considerable. The four Receivers 
have a year in which to pay the Receiver-General, and 
the Receiver-General has eighteen months in which to 
pay the King. During this time they are continuing 
to receive, and are putting out their money to interest. 
What is the result? We find ourselves always a year 
and a half behindhand; we are obliged to borrow at 
least a year's amount, in order to meet necessary 
expenses. To whom do we apply? To these very 
Receivers-General, who lend us our own money at 

ten per cent. Therefore, 

livres 

From the sum of 521,500 

we must take further, the sum of 55,000^ 

You will see that there will finally remain 

to us only the sum of 466,500 

After very careful consideration, we have proposed 
to the Province of Minden that it should raise a mean 
amount of 20,000 livres, to be received by us direct at 
Berlin, in two equal payments, to be made, the first in 
the month of August, and the second in the month of 
February of the following year. This proposal the 
Province has accepted. 

The following are the advantages which will accrue 
to the Province and to us. 

The Province will gain: — 

livres. 

Upon the Charges of 15,000 livres, at least 7, 500 

Upon the sum of 20,000 livres, a Grant for 

Expenses of Collection amounting to 5,ooo 

Total Gain for the Province 12,500 

' The king's arithmetic in this memorandum is absolutely 
unintelligible. 



Frederick the Great loi 



We shall gain : — livres. 

(i) On the Expenses of Collection and of Com- 
missions 8,500 

(2) Being paid every six months, we shall, at 
the lowest calculation, have to borrow half 
the amount only. Thus on the 55,000 
livres interest formerly paid to the Receivers, 
we will gain the half, which leaves to the 
King 27,500 



Total Gain for the King 36,000 

Excise Dues 

We have established the general levying of 
Excise, and we have found that it amounts to. . . . 4,500,000 
On which the Tax-farmers pay out: — livres. 

(1) To the King 1,500,000 

(2) On advances of 1,500,000 five 

per cent 75iOOO 

(3) In Expenses of Administration. .. 2,225,000 

3,800,000 

Consequently, there remains a net profit to the 

Tax-farmers of 700,000 

After having established the general system of col- 
lection, we have sent to each province the details of its 
payments in subsidies, and we have enquired of them 
what would be the most certain and the least costly 
method of collecting them. We cite you the reply of 
the Province of Magdeburg, because it appears to us 
to be the clearest and the most satisfactory. 

The Reply of the Province of Magdeburg 

We have not been surprised by the enormous ex- 
penses entailed on the Province by the administration 
of the Excise Dues, but we should be much astonished 



102 The Confessions of 

if the King did not accord us the Hberty of paying him 
the subsidies by subscription, and above all, after the 
Report which we are about to lay before him. 

In the Province of Magdeburg the amount livres, 

actually collected comes to 450,000 

The Expenses of Administration are 
as follows: 

livres. 

(i) For Four Directors at 6,000 livres. . . 24,000 

(2) For Four Travelling Inspectors 

at 2,400 livres 9,600 

(3) For Twenty Town Receivers at 

1,200 livres 24,000 

(4) For 120 Travelling Agents at 800 

livres 96,000 

(5) Compensations and Expenses of 
Official Reports 20,000 

(6) Expenses and Salaries of the Court 

of Excise 30,000 

(7) Remittance of monies to the General 
Pay-Office 10,000 

213,600 

Consequently, there remains for the Tax-farmers . . 236,400 

of which 236,400 livres the King receives about 120,000 
livres. Of what then is it a question ? It is to give to 
the King 120,000 Hvres of Excise Dues. But we do far 
more than this; we give him 170,000 livres, and this is 
how we do so. 

We have made two taxes, one for the towns, and the 
other for the country, and we have made a general cal- 
culation upon the different returns sent in by the 
burgomasters of the towns and villages, and we have 
found that every year the sales throughout the pro- 
vince have been as follows: — 



Frederick the Great 103 

Flagons Flagons Flagons 
of Wine. of Beer, of Spirits. 

In the Boroughs and Towns . . 400,000 1,500,000 30,000 
In the Villages and Hamlets . . 100,000 800,000 12,000 

500,000 2,300,000 42,000 
Totals:— 

Beer 2,300,000 

Wine 500,000 

Spirits 42,000 

Total Amount 2,842,000 

According to the Two taxes which we impose: 

FOR THE towns: 

livres. livres. 
400,000 flagons of wine at 10 sous 

make 200,000 

' 1,500,000 flagons of beer at 4 deniers 

make 25,000 

30,000 flagons of spirits at 20 sous 

make 30,000 

255,000 

FOR THE villages: 

100,000 flagons of wine at 5 sous make. . 25,000 
800,000 flagons of beer at 3 deniers make. 12,000 
12,000 flagons of spirits at 10 sous make . 6,000 

43,000 

298,000 
We have sent circular instructions to the Burgo- 
masters of the towns, and others to those of the villages 
to the following effect : — 

instructions to the burgomasters of magdeburg^ 

Gentlemen, 

By the returns which you have forwarded to us, 
'The king's arithmetic is unintelligible. 



104 The Confessions of 

it is an established fact that the dealers in wine, beer, 
and spirits sell each year in your town 

133,000 pots of wine 
800,000 " " beer 
15,000 " " spirits. 

We charge you, Gentlemen, to collect, in whatever 
way suits you best, the sum of 93,833 livres, 6 sous, 
8 deniers, to wit : — 

livres. s. d. 

For the 133,000 flagons of wine, at 10 sous. . . 66,500 - - 

For the 800,000 flagons of beer at 4 deniers' . 13,333 6 8 

For the 15,000 flagons of spirits, at i livre. . . 15,000 - - 



Equal to the Imposition 94,833 6 8 

We give the Town, for Expenses of Collection, 
as making very nearly the consumption of a third 
of the 

livres. s. d. 

Province 20,000 - - 

This will not yield to the coffers of the 

King more than 74,833 6 8 



94,833 6 8 



And by this arrangement the Eling will not collect 
further taxes from your town. You will have the 
satisfaction of giving him 16,000 livres more than the 
Tax-farmers, and the privilege of adjusting the tax 
on yourselves as you desire, and you will gain about 
43,000 livres a year. 

^ The king's arithmetic is unintelligible. 



Frederick the Great 105 

instructions to the burgomasters of villages^ 

Sir, 

Following the Schedule which you have sent 
us, it is obvious that the average sale per annum in 
your Village amounts to — 

400 flagons of wine 
2000 " " beer 
150 " " spirits. 

We charge you, Sir, on your Village, by whatever 
method appears most suitable to the Villagers in 
Council for this purpose, to collect the sum of 425 
livres. 

livres. 

For 400 flagons of wine at 5 sous 100 

For 2000 flagons of beer at 3 sous 250 

For 150 flagons of spirits at 10 sous 75 

425 

We give to the Village, for Expenses of Administra- 
tion, 85 livres, in consequence of which it will only be 
reported to yield 340 livres. By this payment the 
King holds you exempt from further Customs dues, 
and you will have the advantage of giving him about 
40 livres a year more than the Tax-farmers, and the 
privilege of taxing yourselves, and of gaining about 
180 livres. 

Concerning Salt^ 

The Tax-farmers give us yearly for Salt 900,000 
livres. In virtue of this sum, we grant them the ex- 
clusive right of working the Salt-mines and of manu- 

' The arithmetic is again unintelligible. 



io6 The Confessions of 

facturing Salt, throughout our Kingdom, of charging 
our subjects 5 sous a pound for Salt, and of forcing 
them to take so much Salt per annum. According to 
the returns and the consumption of Salt during the 
past year, the Tax-farmers have disposed of 18,000,000 
pounds of Salt at 5 sous 

livres. 
a pound, which amounts to 4,500,000 

on which they have paid 

Hvres. 

To the King 900,000 

For working the Salt at 6 deniers the 

pound 350,000 

Interest on advances at about 5 per 

cent 350,000 

Expenses of Distribution and Salaries. 900,000 3,270,000 



Consequently the Tax-farmers retain 1,230,000 

METHOD OF WORKING 

We have devised a simple method of working, which 
the cupidity of the Tax-farmers has rendered extremely 
simple. It is as follows: — 

We have required in each Province a Statement of 
the amount of Salt which it was obliged to take into 
store, and having collated all the different Statements, 
we have drawn up a rule of division for the 900,000 
hvres which the King draws from this farming; that 
is to say, we have applied to the Province that por- 
tion of this sum which corresponded to the amount 
of Salt taken, taking everything into consideration, 
and then we have sent to each Province the following 
Memorandum : — 



Frederick the Great 107 

MEMORANDUM SENT TO THE PROVINCE OF MINDEN' 

Gentlemen, 

By the Report which you have sent, we see that 
your Province is obHged to purchase from the depots 
of the Farmers-General a milHon pounds of Salt per 
annum, and to pay them, at the rate of 5 sous the 
pound, 250,000 livres. 

The King does not wish to use compulsion with his 
subjects in the matter of any commodity which is 
indispensably necessary to them, and from this 
moment he takes over the control of the Salt Mines, 
and will manufacture the Salt at his own expense, for 
sale to all alike and without distinction. He merely 
requires from you that you should send him yearly, 
direct and free of charges, the sum of 50,000 livres, 
making the i8th part of that of 900,000 livres given 
him by the Farmers-General, and which you your- 
selves pay since you take a million pounds of Salt, 
making also the eighteenth part of the consumption 
for one year. 

But as by his project the King increases his revenue, 
and at the same time confers an advantage upon you, 
we propose to go into the matter with you in greater 
detail (more minutely). 

livres. 
You take a million pounds of Salt every year, and 

you pay for it 5 sous per pound, which makes 250,000 

On this 250,000 livres the King receives only. . . . 50,000 



Consequently there remains for the farmers 200,000 

Through the enquiries which we have made, 
we know that the Tax-Farmers disburse on the 200,000 

^ The arithmetic is again unintelligible. 



io8 The Confessions of 

(i) For the production of a million livres. 
pounds of Salt at i sou the pound 75,ooo 

(2) Interest on advances both for the 
75,000 livres and for the 50,000 livres 

given to the King, about 6,800 

(3) Expenses of Distribution at I sou 

per pound 50,000 

131,800 

Leaving for the Tax-Farmers 68,000 

It is this 68,200 livres which the King proposes to 
divide with you and your Province, by giving the 
dealer for right of sale the 50,000 livres which it costs 
the Tax-Farmers in salaries for distribution of this 
commodity in your Province. We imagine that your 
dealers will be well satisfied. 

Tobacco 

sous. 
We allow our tax-farmers to sell tobacco to the public 

at the rate per pound of 45 

It costs them the following: — 

sous. 
(i) Payment to Your Majesty 10 

(2) Purchase in leaf 12 

(3) Carriage 2 

(4) Manufacture 3 

(5) Packing (or making up) and waste 2 

(6) Extraordinary expense and interest on ad- 
vances 3 

(7) Wages and expense of distribution 4 

- 36 

There consequently remains as net gain to the tax- 
farmers on every pound 9 

According to the total of the past year, this con- 
sumption has amounted to eight million pounds. 
Thus, our Tax-farmers have made 3,600,000 livres. 



Frederick the Great 109 

In order to secure for ourselves a portion of these 
profits, we are establishing a General Depot in each 
Province, to which the Tobacco is brought in the first 
instance in leaf, to be then manufactured, and finally 
sold at a fixed price to whoever wants it. 

According to the calculation we have ourselves 
made, based upon that of the Farmers-General, each 

sous, 
pound should cost us not more than 20 

(1) For the purchase in leaf 12 

(2) Carriage i 

(3) Manufacture 3 

(4) Packing and waste 2 

(5) Interest and advances , 2 

— 20 

We shall sell it to the public at 35 

Consequently, we shall gain 15 

which makes a gain of 2,000,000 livres for us. 

There remains 10 sous, which will be re-absorbed in 
commerce, and which will be shared, naturally, be- 
tween the public and the dealer, for the latter will 
certainly be content to make four or five sous per 
pound. 

Forestry 

livres. 

This Department is farmed for 2,500,000 

Upon this sum we pay 800,000 

to an endless number of officials, created formerly for 
the purpose of keeping order, exclusive of the cost of 
their oflficial reports, which are made at our expense, 
and which amount to more than 400,000 livres per 
annum. 



no The Confessions of 

livres. 

Therefore, from the sum of 2,500,000 

we must deduct 1,200,000 

Consequently there only remains to 

ourselves i ,300,000 

In order thoroughly to understand the value of this 
source of revenue, we have sent Surveyors into each 
Province, who have drawn plans of all our forests, have 
produced specimens of them, have analysed the quali- 
ties of the woods, have noted the price of each, and 
have observed the best method of selling them. 

One can judge by the Report on one of our Pro- 
vinces the result of their investigations throughout 
the Kingdom. 

Province of Minden 

Report Sent to the Council by the Surveyor 

There are in this Province 8,000 acres of Wood. 
These 8,000 acres consist of three forests, to wit : — 

acres. 

That of 4,000 

That of. 2,000 

And that of 2,000 

The forest of is composed of , 

2,000 acres of firs 
1,000 " " oaks 
and 1,000 " " beeches. 

Its situation, close to the Weser, enables all the wood 
to be sold at a reasonable price, to wit : — 



Frederick the Great iii 

livres. 
That of Firs, which are cut down every 

sixty years, at 800 per acre. 

That of Oaks, which may be cut down 

every twenty years, at 150 " 

That of Beech, which one may cut down 

at the same periods, at 180 " 

According to my calculations, cutting so regulated, 
will bring in : — 

livres. 

Firs, about 33! acres at 800 Hvres, the sum of 26,666 

Oaks, about 50 acres, at 150 livres 7, 500 

Beech, about 50 acres, at 180 livres 9,000 



Total per annum 43, 166 

The Forest of . . . is composed of 2,000 acres, 

to wit: — 

acres. 

Oaks 1,400 

Beech 200 

Chestnuts 200 

And White Wood 200 

This Forest is not well situated, because there are 
no large rivers or big towns in the neighbourhood, 
thus I don't cut the wood for sale, but to make the 
following use of it : — 

Every year I take 24 acres of Oaks, which I have 
made into planks,'^ and I find that after deducting 
all expenses each acre brings in 250 livres, making a 
total of 6,000 livres. 

' Or stave- wood — merrain in the dictionary. 



112 The Confessions of 



Uvres. 
Carried forward 6,000 

Then I take 13I acres of beech and of white wood, 
because I have divided the 400 into thirty parts, and I 
make a Hme-kiln, provided I find in the forest itself the 
right kind of material for this purpose. By the sale of 
the lime I find that each acre is worth, less expenses, 30 
livres, which makes 13 1 acres worth 400 

Of the 200 acres of Chestnuts, I cut 8 acres every 
year, and I have them made into barrel hoops: I 
find that each acre brings in 80 livres, which makes 

on the 8 acres the sum of 640 

7,040 

The Forest of is composed of 

acres. 
Oaks 600 

Beeches 1,200 

White Wood 200 

It is situated in a plain, easy of access, and within 
easy reach of three small towns. 

I divide the 600 acres of Oak into 100, and I find 
that I can cut 6 acres every year. Since these three 
small towns must of necessity supply themselves with livres 
wood and building material, I sell these six acres for. . 9,000 

Carried forward 7,040 

9,000 

Of the 1,200 acres of Beech trees, I take 800, which 
I cut every 25 years, to make firewood, which makes 32 
acres every year, which I sell at 160 livres, bringing in 5,120 

For the 400 acres remaining of Beechwood, and 
the 200 acres of White Wood, I cut them every 
13 years, making each year 15 acres, and I make 
them into brushwood, which is done up into large 
faggots, for the convenience of the poor. I find that 
the sale of this brings me in per acre 120 livres, making 

in all for the '50 acres 6,000 

Total 27,160 

* The arithmetic is again unintelligible. 



Frederick the Great 113 



Schedule of the District of 



This District contains two large and enormous 
forests, which embrace a considerable extent of 
country. These two forests are situated partly on the 
plain, and partly on the mountain. They are both of 
them far distant from any large rivers, and have, 
properly speaking, no outlet, so that the property is 
useless to the King. 

But the examination which has been made of these 
two forests has shown that they can be made use of. 

(i) There are districts in which it would be an easy 
matter to establish glass and china works, because 
there is there plenty of fern and earth, and no lack of 
water. 

(2) There are large streams, collected or dammed in 
good beds for the formation of canals, especially at the 
times when the snows are melting, or during the 
periods of the heavy rains. 

In order that the undertaking may cost us nothing, 
a Company might be formed, wherein we would be 
represented by an Agent, and to which we would sub- 
scribe a quarter of the funds; this Company would 
make the necessary advances for the Canals, and for 
this purpose it would have the use of the wood for a 
period of . . . years. 

As there are valleys which are situated at too great 
a distance from these canals, the woods there should 
be burnt out, and villages built on the clearings, which 
would soon be peopled, since the land will be excellent 
for pasture, and the inhabitants would find plenty of 
occupation in the regular felling of the wood which 
will be established, and in the upkeep of all the canals. 

We believe this project to be good, Sire, because, 

8 



114 The Confessions of 

however weak may be the Navy of our Kingdom, it 
will be able to obtain thereby a great deal of wood, and 
even for export to France ; which would be a matter 
of great importance to our dominions, since by this 
means we open up a very considerable source of 
exportation and of revenue. 

MEMORANDUM OF THE POSTAL SERVICE TO THE KING 

We have no suggestions to make concerning the Ad- 
ministration of the Postal Service, because, all things 
considered, it is good in our Kingdom. The only 
transaction which we would beg of you is to place this 
department under the Excise, since you would then 
gain yearly at least the amount of the tax-farmer's 
profit. You are the better able to do this, that the 
department is a well-equipped machine and not liable 
to much change. Moreover, the same employes 
would serve under the Excise, and the general manage- 
ment can be left to the present official. 

Your Postal Service is in the hands of six tax-farmers 
and a dozen subordinates (partners). 

livres. 

The tax-farmers each make at least 60,000 livres, 
which for the six amounts to 360,000 

The 12 subordinates each make 15,000 livres 
or together 180,000 

In all 540,000 

From this amount we must take that of 140,000 

to wit: — 

livres. 

For the General Manager 60,000 

Four Directors-General attached to 

the Excise Office 80,000 

There remains as profit to Your Majesty.. 140,000 400,000 



Frederick the Great 115 

POST-HOUSES 

The Postal Service is divided into two branches: 
Letter-Posts and Post-Houses. 

The Post-Houses are onerous to us, and the Letter- 
Posts are not so advantageous as they should be. We 
have, therefore, to find a means of improving con- 
ditions in every respect. 

The Post-Houses are a burden to us, because they 
involve for all the Post-masters salaries exception 
from Poll-tax, and qualification for compensation in 
case of accident, and because no profit accrues to us 
therefrom. 

Let us now examine the reasons which led my father 
to institute this arrangement. 

Vanity was the principal reason. He believed that 
it appertained to the dignity of a king to have public 
posts established in all parts of his kingdom. He did 
not regard these establishments as existing only for 
the distribution of letters, but much more for giving 
greater facilities to the nobility and to wealthy com- 
moners for the display of pomp. 

The following are the arrangements which we have 
made in this matter : — 

(i) We have taken an exact survey of all the roads 
in the Kingdom ; and after a complete and very minute 
enquiry, having found four hundred posting-routes 
which are hardly ever used by carriages or coaches, 
we have reduced them to one stage-horse and three 
saddle-horses each. 

(2) As our intention is to revive a branch of industry 
in our Kingdom, we desire, so to speak, to force every- 
one to use the public conveyances, and to this end we 
are reducing the remainder of the posts to half the 



ii6 The Confessions of 

number of horses, and at the same time doubling the 
cost of posting to everyone except our ordinary and 
extraordinary couriers, our Ambassadors, our Gen- 
erals, and our Agents, on Royal business requiring 
expedition. 

By these two regulations, the Post-masters will no 
longer be surcharged, and the couriers, being paid 
double by the public will certainly profit, to an ex- 
tent which should enable us to take from them ex- 
emption from Poll-tax, and to reduce their salaries 
by one-half. 

That is the scheme, and this is the manner in which 
it should be of use to us and to the public. 

To us, because it is certain that upon two 
thousand Post-masters, we should gain 

livres. 

through diminution of salaries, about 100,000 

and through rescinding their tax-exemption 300,000 

making a total of 400,000 

With regard to the Public: We presume that 
there are yearly 4,000 persons to whom posting 
is rather a matter of appearances than of necessity; 
these 4,000 persons will save, one way and another, livres. 
at least 72 livres each, which makes in all the sum of . . 288,000 

These same 4,000 persons by traveUing in the 
public conveyances will benefit the drivers and the 
innkeepers to the extent of at least 30 livres each, 
making in all 120,000 

Making a total of 408,000 

We would observe to Your Majesty that the public 
service will in no way suffer, since upon all the fre- 
quented routes we shall leave the posting well enough 
equipped for no loss of time to be occasioned. 



Frederick the Great 117 



STAMP OFFICE AND REGISTRATION OF DEEDS' 

After a labour of some length, and the com- 
pilation of an abstract of all the registers of the 
past year, we have arrived at some measure of 
information as to the amount brought into the 
revenue by each Controller, and we have found 
that, all told, these tax-farmers raise an amount livres. 

of 4,000,000 

of which four millions they spend : livres. 

^ Given to us 2,200,000 

In Salaries 400,000 

Extraordinary Expenses 200,000 

Advances at the rate of 5 per cent. . . 80,000 

3,280,000 



Profits 720,000 

We shall oblige each individual Receiver to 
bring us the same sum that he brought to the 
Farmers-General, paying it direct and free of 
cost of sending, and we will give him a third more livres. 
salary; which might make a stmi of 150,000 

We shall nominate further four Directors-General 

at a salary of 25,000 livres each, in all 100,000 

And 12 Inspectors-General at 6,000 livres each 72,000 

Leaving for the King 322,000 

livres. 

By this operation, we gain, in the first place 720,000 

Of which, in order to ensure a thorough service, 

we spend out 322,000 

Leaving a balance for us of 398,000 

STAMPED PAPER 

Throughout our dominions during the 
past year there have been sold 16,000,000 
sheets of stamped paper, yielding, at i sou livres. s. d. 
the sheet, the svun of 800,000 

* Frederick's addition is hopeless. 



ii8 The Confessions of 

livres s. d. 
The Tax-farmers have paid us 200,000 

The 16,000,000 sheets of 

paper have cost them, livres. s. d. 

at 4 deniers the sheet. . . 133,333 6 8 
For Stamp, at i denier 

per sheet 33,333 6 8 

Distribution at 2 denier 

per sheet 66,666 13 4 

Advances of about 400,000 

hvres at 5 per cent 20,000 

Office and Extraordinary 

Expenses 50,000 303,333 6 8 

Remains to the Farmers-General 503,333 6 8 

MODUS OPERANDI (Schedule) 

Every year there are manufactured in 
one of our mills 16,000,000 sheets of paper 
at 3 deniers the sheet, amounting to the livres. s. d. 

sum of 100,000 o o 

These are stamped at i denier per sheet 33,333 6 8 

(3) In every Province we establish a 
General Dep6t in the ofBce of the Registrar- 
General of the chief town, who is responsible 
for the distribution. We allow him to 
charge i denier per sheet; those who distri- 
bute after him being allowed to charge 2 
deniers per sheet, the total cost amounts to 

3 deniers per sheet, in all 100,000 o o 

Making a full total of 233,333 6 8 

By this you will see that by selling our paper our- 
selves, we shall make, at 2 sous a sheet, 566,666 livres 
13 sous 4 deniers. 

But, as our principal object is for the Public to gain 
as well as ourselves, it shall not be sold at more than 
I sou the sheet, and thus the Public will profit by the 
transaction to the amount of 141,660 livres, and we 



Frederick the Great 119 

ourselves to the amount of 425,000 livres, instead of 
the 200,000^ livres which the tax-farmer gives us. 

CUSTOMS-DUTY ON FOREIGN GOODS 

The Tax-farmers in this department raise every livres. 

year the sum of 1,200,000 

They hand over to us 400,000 

So that there remains to them 800,000 

The object of these Customs was to impede foreign 
trade, so that the money should not leave the Kingdom, 
and to oblige the inhabitants to dress in material 
manufactured in the Kingdom. By degrees luxury 
has increased, and money has become more plentiful, 
so that it has become really expedient to manufacture 
these same goods in the country. 

We have manufactures of every description. The 
owners of these factories have the deepest interest 
in impeding the sale of foreign goods. Why, then, 
should we not come to an understanding with them as 
to the matter of Customs Dues ? The following is the 
action which we have taken in the matter. 

We have had an exact Abstract of the different goods 
which come into the Kingdom each year made, as well 
as of the duties which are collected upon these goods. 

From this enquiry it appears that our Tax-farmers 

receive at least 

livres. 

On Silk materials, Ribbons and the like 400,000 

On Cloth and other woollen goods 400,000 

On Cloth of Gold and of Silver, and on Gold and 

Silver jewellery 200,000 

On Iron and Steel goods 100,000 

And on Copper and Tin goods 100,000 

Making a total of 1,200,000 

' The arithmetic is again faulty. 



120 The Confessions of 

Having made this Abstract, we have proposed to all 
the Manufacturers to pay us, direct and free of all 
Charges, the sum of 600,000 livres; and we have 
promised them, in the name of His Majesty, a Law, 
forbidding, under the most rigorous penalties, anyone 
soever, whether of His Majesty's subjects or a for- 
eigner, bringing into our realm any goods for which 
there are factories established in our dominions; and 
we have given them permission to carry this law 
into effect themselves and through their accredited 
agents. And in order to prevent any confusion in the 
matter of the payment of the 600,000 livres, we have 
put a tax upon every species of manufactured goods: 

to wit: — 

livres. 
All Silken Manufactures, Materials, Ribbons, 

and the like 2,000,000 

All Manufactures of Cloth and Other Woollen 

Goods 200,000 

Gold and Silver Goods and Jewellery 50,000 

Copper and Tin Goods 50,000 

In all 2,300,000 

All the manufacturers have agreed to this pro- 
position, and therefore we gain 200,000 livres, but it 
is impossible to estimate the benefits which we shall 
confer by this arrangement, in the first place, because 
money will no longer be taken out of the country, 
and secondly, because our subjects will profit to the 
same extent by each other as the foreigners formerly 
did by them. 

OCTROI DUTIES IN THE TOWNS 

We leave unaltered the established Octroi duties in 
the Towns, upon commodities and goods of which we 



Frederick the Great 121 

have made no mention. They are just and necessary, 
because it is through them that trade contributes to 
the upkeep of the State. But we propose that each 
town should compound these dues. We know, more 
or less, by the Abstract of the Registers of these 
districts how much they can afford to pay, so 
that we should not be liable to any injury by this 
arrangement. 

My father, after having examined the Scheme 
for this new Administration, followed his own 
opinion on the subject, and continued to collect 
the Subsidies upon the basis of the Land-Survey 
register, and allowed the local and general receivers 
to continue. 

To simplify the administration of all these 
taxes, payment of toll was permitted at the town 
gates on tobacco, coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, 
wheat, flour, spirits, beer, liqueurs, and generally, 
on all the necessities and luxuries of life. 

For this purpose he established in every town 
an Excise Office, the staff of which, in large 
towns, consisted of a Receiver, a Cashier, a Super- 
intendent, an Inspector, and ten clerks, and in 
small towns, of a Receiver and two clerks. He 
then formed Departments, over which he placed 
Commissaries. 

To ensure respect for his employees, he gave 
them honoiirable social rank, which made it pos- 
sible for him to insist on their taking lower salaries, 
and being content with modest profits. 

With regard to Salt, he undertook the manufac- 



122 The Confessions of 

ture of it himself, distributing it at his own cost 
and expense. 

The Stamping of Documents was a Department 
which he considered too delicate for his interfer- 
ence. He would not even touch that of Stamped 
Paper. 

As regards the Forestry scheme, he adopted it 
more or less as it stood. 

This new source of revenue only brought him in 
a profit of two millions. 

And it was only by putting the interior of his 
house in order that he placed himself in a position 
to pay his debts. It is true that he introduced 
into it an order so economical that it could not 
be improved upon. 

So long as I have had any money I have never 
thought about my finances. It is only since this 
War that this subject has claimed my constant 
attention. 

I should like to continue further with you the 
Memorial of the Council of my father, but circum- 
stances do not permit of my doing so, and I have 
not time to enter into such long and minute par- 
ticulars; in the meantime, this is what I myself 
have done: 

I have suggested to all the Commissaries of the 
Department to compound with all the towns. I 
have instituted a reform amongst all the Tax- 
collectors, and I have lowered their commission 
by one-half per cent.; all this will bring me in 
about 20,000,000 livres. 



Frederick the Great 123 

Secondly, I have found means to establish the 
poll-tax in those provinces which were the least 
overburdened, on the pretext of equalizing the 
impositions for payment of contributions. This 
little ruse will bring me in about 400,000 livres a 
year. 

ARMY 

livres. 
By retrenching five men per com- 
pany, I make a yearly gain of 1,000,000 

On the 2 sous which I deduct from 
each soldier for commissariat bread, 

I save 600,000 

On hair powder and lodging 720,000 

On Clothing 800,000 

On Riding Hacks 180,000 

On Staffs, Governments and Com- 
mands 300,000 

In all 3,600,000 

When I was certain of economizing 6,000,000 
a year, I began to think of paying off my debts, 
and this is how I do so : 

livres. 

Reckoning everything, I am in 

debt for 100,000,000 ; 

the point is how to settle for this 
amount. 

To this end, I borrow from the 
Dutch, in four years, at 4 per cent., 
the sum of 74,057,500 



124 Confessions of Frederick the Great 

I add to this sum that of my livres. 

savings 24,000,000 

and with the two I repay the 100,000,000 livres* 
of my debt. 

When this transaction is concluded, I shall take 
out another loan of 60,843,025 livres, at 3 per 
cent.; I shall add to this amount 12,000,000 
livres of savings; and I hope that in two years 
I shall find myself in a position to repay the 
74,057,500 livres.^ In this way, by the year 1771, 
I shall only owe, by the reduction of the interests, 
the sum of 60,843,025 livres. The subjoined table 
will afford you proof of this. 

If there is no War in 1771, what will become of 
all these Repayments? That is the moment, my 
dear nephew, for which I am most earnestly 
looking, in order to introduce into my realm a 
new kind of currency. 

I intend to circulate among the public a certain 
amount of paper; if this is taken up, I shall 
increase the amount; and if it is not taken up, I 
shall withdraw it, rather than allow it to become 
depreciated. I shall try this experiment several 
times, and I am firmly convinced that in the end 
money (specie) will become (a glut?) and the 
paper will take its place (or will rise?). 

This transaction is a very delicate one, for, 
strictly speaking, paper has only a momentary 
and uncertain vogue. But it is very useful when 
one knows how to make good use of it. 

^ The king's arithmetic is again unintelligible. 



r — w 




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126 Confessions of Frederick the Great 

If I can once succeed in launching it properly, 
I shall attempt the plan of repaying the loans 
partly in coin and partly in paper; and then, 
in three years I shall be able to extinguish the 
60,843,025 livres. 



The Life of Frederick the Great 

By 
Heinrich von Treitschke 



127 



The Life of Frederick the Great 

By 

Heinrich von Treitschke 



FREDERICK WILLIAM'S reign fell in the mis- 
erable, Boeotian, idea-less age of the Peace of 
Utrecht; the small tricks of Fleury, Alberoni, and 
Walpole governed European politics. The upright 
Prince was helpless amid the cunning intrigues 
of the diplomatists. With old-German fidel- 
ity he held to his Kaiser, wanted to lay swords 
and pistols in the cradles of his children, in order to 
banish foreign nations from the Imperial soil. 
How often, with the beer- jug of the Fatherland in 
his hand, had he cried out his ringing: "Vivat 
Germania, Teutscher Nation!" Unsuspecting by 
nature, he now had to experience how the Court 
of Vienna, with its two ambitious neighbours, 
Hanover and Saxony, would come to a secret 
understanding on the division of Prussia, and how 
they would then help the Albertiners to the crown 
of Poland, deliver Lorraine to the French, and in 
his own home stir up discord between father and 
son, while they at last treacherously tried to wrest 
from him his right of succession to Berg and 
Ostfriesland. 

9 129 



130 The Life of 

So for his whole life he was pushed backwards 
and forwards between enemies and false friends; 
only at the end of his days did he see through 
Austria's cunning, and admonish his son to avenge 
a betrayed father. But at foreign courts it was 
said that the King stood continually on the watch 
with his gun at full cock, without ever letting it 
go ojEf ; and when occasionally a latent fear of the 
sentry at Potsdam overcame the other Germans, 
they were cheered by the sneer: "The Prussians 
won't shoot as quickly as all that!" 

But the sneering was silenced when Prussia 
found a ruler who, by the happy practical sense 
of the HohenzoUerns, with a sense of the possible 
united the daring and clear vision of genius. 

The bright sunshine of youth illuminates the 
beginning of the Frederician period, when at last, 
after much faltering and trepidation, the obstinate 
mass of the benumbed German world got on the 
move again, and the mighty contrasts which it hid 
measured themselves in the necessary struggle. 

Since the days of that Lion of the Midnight Sun 
Germany had had no picture of a hero to whom 
the entire nation could look up with awe; but he 
who now, in proud freedom, as once Gustavus 
Adolphus had done, strode through the middle of 
the Great Powers, and forced the Germans to 
believe again in the wonder of heroism, he was a 
German. 

The mainspring in this mighty nature is the 
ruthless, terrible German directness. Frederick 



Frederick the Great 131 

gives himself as he is, and sees things as they are. 
As in the long row of volumes of his letters and 
writings there is not one line in which he attempts 
to extenuate his deeds, or to adorn his own picture 
for posterity, so his statesmanship, even if it did 
not despise the small arts and ruses of the age as 
means to an end, bears the stamp of his royal 
frankness. 

As often as he draws his sword, he announces 
with candid exactitude what he demands from 
the enemy, and lays down his weapon only when he 
has reached his goal. From the moment that he 
awakes to thinking, he feels himself glad and 
proud that he is the son of a free century, which, 
with the torch of reason, shines in upon the dusty 
comers of a world of old prejudices and lifeless 
traditions; he has the picture of the Sun-god, 
who climbs up through the morning clouds, victo- 
rious, on the ceiling of his gay Rheinsberger Hall. 

With the bold confidence of an apostle of en- 
lightenment, he approaches the apparitions of 
historical life, and tests each one, to see how it 
will stand the judgment of a penetrating intellect. 
In the severe struggles of the various States for 
power, he notices only realities, and esteems only 
force cleverly used with presence of mind. "Ne- 
gotiations without weapons are like music without 
instruments," he says calmly, and on the news of 
the death of the last Habsburg, he asks his advis- 
ers, "I give you a problem to solve; when one has 
the advantage, shall one make use of it or not?" 



133 The Life of 

The swaggering impotence which poses as power, 
the senseless privileges which make a show of 
historical right, the faineants, who mask their 
helplessness behind empty platitudes, could never 
find a more arrogant contemner; and nowhere 
could this inexorable realism operate so cleansingly 
and disturbingly, so revolutionarily, as in the great 
fable of the (Holy) Roman Empire. Nothing 
could be more pitiless than Frederick's derision of 
the holy Majesty of the Kaiser Francis, who is 
toddled round on the apron-strings of his wife, and 
(a worthy King of Jerusalem) executes lucrative 
contracts for the armies of the Queen of Hungary : 
nothing more fierce than his mocking of "the 
phantom" of the Imperial army, of the conceited 
futility of the minor Courts, of the peddling formal- 
ism of "these cursed old fogies of Hanover," of 
the empty pride of the estate-less petty feudal 
nobility {Junkertum) in Saxony and Mecklenburg, 
of "the whole breed of princes and peoples in 
Austria" — "who bends his knee to the great 
ones of this world, he knows them not!" 

In full consciousness of superiority, he holds out 
the healthy reality of his modern State beside the 
shadowy conceptions of the Imperial Law ; a sullen 
ill-nature speaks from his letters when he lets "the 
pedants of Regensburg" experience the iron 
necessity of war. Frederick fulfils in the deed 
what the wrangling publicists of the past centuries, 
Hippolithus and Severinus, have attempted only 
with words; he holds the "fearfully corpse-like 



Frederick the Great 133 

face of Germany" up to the mirror, proves before 
all the world the irretrievable rottenness of the 
Holy (Roman) Empire. 

Well-meaning contemporaries may have blamed 
him, because he delivers up the time-honoured 
community to ridicule; posterity thanks him, 
for he brings truth to honour again in German 
politics, as Martin Luther once brought it in 
German thought and faith. 

Frederick had appropriated that severe Pro- 
testant view of German history and Imperial 
politics which had prevailed among the freer in- 
tellects of Prussia since Pufendorf and Thomasius, 
and then, with the embittering experiences of his 
tyrannized youth, cultivated them further, rigor- 
ously and independently. 

In the rising of the Schmalkaldener, in the 
Thirty- Years' War, in all the confusion of the last 
two centuries, he saw nothing but the unceasing 
struggle of German freedom against the despotism 
of the House of Austria, which governed the weaker 
princes as slaves "with an iron rod, " and left only 
the strong free to do as they chose. Not without 
arbitrariness he arranged the facts of history 
according to this one-sided view; one-sidedness 
turned towards light and life is, after all, the privi- 
lege of the creative genius. To bring the old 
struggle to a victorious end seemed to him the 
problem of the Prussian State. In his younger 
years he remained still true to Protestant things: 
he prized the glorious duty of the house of Bran- 



134 The Life of 

denburg " to promote the Protestant religion every- 
where in Germany and in Europe, " and remarked, 
full of displeasure, in Heidelberg, how here in the 
old dominions of our Church the monks and priests 
of Rome again carried on their existence. 

Even afterwards, when he estranged himself 
from the Church, and disdainfully condemned the 
mediocre parsons' outlooks of Luther and Calvin, 
from the height of his self-sure philosophical out- 
look, the conviction remained alive in him that his 
State, with every root of its being, belonged to the 
Protestant world. He knew how all the accom- 
plices of the Vatican worked secretly for the anni- 
hilation of the new great Protestant Power; he 
knew that his human ideal of religious toleration, 
the right of the individual to attain salvation in 
his own fashion, was possible in the first place only 
on a footing of Protestantism; he knew that in 
new and worldly forms he was carrying on the 
struggles of the sixteenth century, and above his 
last work, the outline or sketch for the German 
Princes' League {Fiirstenhund) , he wrote the ex- 
pressive inscription: "After the pattern of the 
rules for the League of Schmalkalden. " 

The earliest of the political writings of Frederick 
preserved for us show us the eyes of the eighteen- 
year-old boy already turned to that sphere of 
political life in which he was to unfold his highest 
and most characteristic powers — the question of 
higher politics. The Crown-Prince examined the 
position of his State in the world, found the situa- 



Frederick the Great 135 

tion of his divided provinces heavily imperilled, 
and, still half-joking and in high spirits, drew up 
bold calculations as to how the remote provinces 
were to be rounded off, that they should no longer 
find themselves "so lonely, without company." 

Only a short time, and the unripe youthful pro- 
jects returned as deep and mighty purposes ; three 
years before his ascension to the throne he already 
saw, with the clairvoyance of genius, the great 
path of his life lying open before him : 

It seems [so he writes] that Heaven has appointed 
the King to make all preparations which wise pre- 
cautions before the beginning of a war demand. 
Who knows, if Providence has not reserved it for 
me to make a glorious use of these war-means at 
some future time, and to convert them to the realiza- 
tion of the plans for which the foresight of my father 
intended them ? 

He noticed that his State tottered in an untenable 
position midway between the small States and the 
Great Powers, and showed himself determined to 
give a definite character to this anomalous con- 
dition {decider cet etre) : it had become a necessity 
to enlarge the territory of the State, and corriger 
la figure de la Prusse, if Prussia wished to stand on 
her own feet and bear the great name of Kingdom 
with honour. 

From generation to generation his ancestors had 
given the House of Austria faithful military service, 
always conscientiously disdaining to profit by the 



136 The Life of 

embarrassments of her neighbour; ingratitude, 
betrayal, and contempt had been their reward. 
Frederick himself had experienced heavily in his 
oppressed youth "the arrogance, the presumption, 
the disdainful pride of this bombastic Court of 
Vienna"; his heart was sworn to hatred against 
"the Imperial gang, " who with their crawling and 
lying had estranged his father's heart from him. 

His untamable pride sprang up when, at the 
paternal court, there was no cold refusal forth- 
coming to the presumptions of Austria: he wrote 
angrily that the King of Prussia should be like the 
noble palm-tree, of which the poet said: "If you 
wish to fell it, it lifts its proud crest." At the 
same time he followed with a watchful eye the 
dislocation of power in the political system, and 
had arrived at the conclusion that the old policy of 
the balance of power of the States of Europe had 
wholly outlived itself; since the victories of the 
War of the Spanish Succession it was no longer the 
opportune time to battle with Austria and England 
against the Bourbons. 

The policy now was to lift the new German State 
"through the f rightfulness of its weapons" to 
such a degree of power that it might maintain its 
independence against every great neighbour, even 
against the Imperial House. 

So the much misused expression "German 
freedom" received a new, nobler meaning in Fred- 
erick's mouth. It no longer meant that dis- 
honourable minor-princes' policy, which called on 



Frederick the Great 137 

foreign countries for help against the Kaiser and 
betrayed the boundaries of the Empire to the alien ; 
it meant the uplifting of a great German Power, 
which would defend the Fatherland in east and 
west, but of its own free will, independent of the 
authority of the Empire. 

For centuries it had been the rule that he who 
was not good Austrian must be good Swede, like 
HippoUthus a Lapide, or good French, like the 
princes of the Rhine-League, or good English, like 
the kindred of the House of Guelph; even the 
Great Elector, in the frightful pressure between 
superior neighbours, could only maintain an in- 
dependent position from time to time. It was 
Frederick's work that beside both those equally 
ruinous tendencies, the veiled and the unveiled 
foreign lordship, a third tendency should arise, 
a policy which was only Prussian, and nothing 
further ; to it Germany's future belonged. 

It was not the method of this hater of empty 
words to talk much of the Fatherland; and yet 
there lived in his soul a sensitive, gruffly-rejecting 
national pride, grown inseparably with his authori- 
tative self-reUance and his pride of birth. That 
foreign nations should play the master on German 
soil was to him like an offence to his personal 
honour and the illustrious blood in his veins, 
which the philosophical King, naive as genius is, 
still prized highly. 

When the astonishing confusion of German af- 
fairs occasionally drove him to an alliance with 



138 The Life of 

foreigners, he never promised the foreign Powers 
a sod of German land, never let them misuse his 
State for their purposes. His whole life long he 
was accused of faithless cunning because no treaty 
or league could make him resign the right of decid- 
ing for himself. 

All the Courts of Europe spoke with resentment 
of the travailler pour le roi de Prusse; being used 
of old to govern the life of Germany, they could 
scarcely grasp that at last the resolute selfishness 
of an independent German State was again opposed 
to their will. The royal pupil of Voltaire had 
begun for the German State the same work of 
emancipation as Voltaire's rival, Lessing, accom- 
plished for our poetry. 

Already in his youthful writings he condemns in 
sharp words the weakness of the Holy (Roman) 
Empire, which had opened its Thermopylae, Alsace, 
to the foreigner; he is angry with the Court of 
Vienna, which has delivered up Lorraine to France; 
he will never forgive the Queen of Hungary for 
letting loose the wild pack of hounds, those orna- 
ments of the East, the Jazygiens, Croatians, and 
the Tolpatschians, on the German Empire, and 
for the first time calling up the Muscovite barbari- 
ans to interfere in Germany's domestic affairs. 

Then during the seven years his German pride 
and hate relieves itself in words of furious scorn. 
To the Russians, who plunder the peasants of his 
new mark (province), he sends the blessing: "Oh, 
could they only submerge themselves with one 



Frederick the Great 139 

spring in the Black Sea, headlong, the hindmost 
last, they themselves and their memory!" And 
when the French overflow the Rhineland, he 
sings (in the French language, it is true) that ode 
which reminds one of the ring of the War of 
Liberation : 

Bis in seine tiefste Quelle, 
Schaumt der alte Rhein vor Groll, 
Flucht der Schmach, dass seine Welle 
Fremdes Joch ertragen soil ! 

(Down to his deepest spring, 
The old Rhine foams with rage, 
Curses the outrage, that his waves 
A foreign yoke must bear.) 

"Prudence is very inclined to preserve what one 
possesses, but courage alone knows how to ac- 
quire" — with this voluntary confession Frederick 
betrayed in his Rheinsberger days how his inner- 
most being forced him to quick resolution, to 
stormy audacity. To do nothing by halves seemed 
to him the first duty of the statesman, and of all 
imaginable resolutions, the worst to him was — to 
take none. But he showed his German blood in 
that he knew how to restrain his fiery impetuous 
activity at the outset with cold, calm calculation. 
He who felt the heroic power of an Alexander in 
him, assigned himself to achieve something lasting 
in the narrow circle in which Fate had placed 
him. 



140 The Life of 

In war he now and then gave rein to his fiery 
spirit, demanded the impossible from his troops, 
and failed through arrogant contempt of the enemy : 
as a statesman he preserved always a perfect 
moderation, a wise self-restraint, which rejected 
every adventurous plan at the threshold. 

Never for a moment was he duped by the 
thought of breaking loose his State from the de- 
cayed German community ; the position of being a 
State of the Empire did not cramp him in the free- 
dom of his European policy; it preserved for him 
the right to have a finger in the destiny of the 
Empire ; therefore he wished to keep his foot in the 
stirrup of the German steed. Still less did it oc- 
cur to him to reach out for the Emperor's crown 
himself. 

After the prophecies of the court astrologers of 
the Great Elector, there always remained alive in 
the neighbourhood of the Hohenzollerns the vague, 
dim, obscure presentiment that this House was 
destined at some time to bear the sceptre and 
sword of the Holy (Roman) Empire; the fire- 
brands, Leopold von Dessau and Winterfeldt, 
presumed occasionally to hail ^heir royal hero as 
the German Augustus. But he knew that his 
secular State could not support the Roman crown, 
that it could only involve the parvenu among the 
Powers in disputes which there was no prospect of 
solving, and remarked drily: "For us it would 
only be a fetter." 

Scarcely had he ascended to the throne, when 



Frederick the Great 141 

German affairs entered on that great change which 
Pufendorf 's prophetic vision had already denoted as 
the only possible ground for a thorough reform of 
the Empire. The old Kaiser-House died out, and 
before the flaming vision of the young King, who 
held the only systematic war-power of Germany in 
his hands, there opened a world of alluring visions, 
which would have inspired a less profound, less 
collected nature to extravagant dreams. Freder- 
ick felt vividly the deep solemnity of the hour: 
"Day and night," he confessed, "the fate of the 
Empire Hes on my heart. I alone can and must 
hold it upright." 

He was determined that this great moment must 
not fly without giving the Prussian State full 
freedom of movement, a place in the council of the 
Great Powers; but he divined also how incal- 
culably, owing to the covetousness of the foreign 
neighbours, and the helpless dissensions in the 
Empire, the position of Germany must be affected 
as soon as the monarchy of the Habsburgs fell to 
pieces. Therefore he wished to spare Austria, and 
contented himself with bringing forward the most 
important of the carefully pondered pretensions of 
his House. Alone, without vouchsafing one word 
to the foreign Powers on the watch, with an over- 
whelming invading force, he broke into Silesia. 

Germany, used to the solemn reflections and 
cross-reflections of her Imperial lawyers, received 
with astonishment and indignation the doctrine 
that the rights of States were only to be main- 



142 The Life of 

tained by active power. Then the conqueror 
offered to procure the Imperial Crown for the 
husband of Maria Theresa, and to fight for 
the integrity of Austria against France. Only the 
opposition of the Court of Vienna drives him 
farther to comprehensive plans for the reform of 
the Empire which remind one of Waldeck's daring 
dreams. 

It was not Frederick who created German 
duality, with which the contemporary- and after- 
world reproached him; the dualism had lasted 
since Charles V, and Frederick was the first who 
earnestly tried to abolish it. 

As soon as the understanding with the Court of 
Vienna proved impossible, the King was seized 
with the daring thought of wresting the Imperial 
Crown for ever from the House of Austria, break- 
ing the last chain which linked this dynasty to 
Germany. He approached the Bavarian Wittels- 
bachs, the only House among the more powerful 
German princely families who, like the Hohen- 
zoUerns, governed German land alone, and like 
them, saw in Austria their natural enemy 

He first founded that alliance between the two 
great pure German States which has since then 
so often, and always for the welfare of the Father- 
land, been renewed. The Elector of Bavaria re- 
ceived the Imperial dignity, and Frederick hoped 
to ensure a firm support for the new Empire, which 
he himself called "my work," in the crown of 
Bohemia. 



Frederick the Great 143 

And soon in Berlin, as in Munich, awakened 
again that saving thought of secularization which 
inevitably forced itself up as soon as a healing 
hand was laid on the languishing body of the 
Empire. The work of strengthening the power of 
the greater secular States of the Empire, which 
Frederick recognized as its only vital members, at 
the cost of the theocratic and republican territories, 
was in progress. 

There was an attempt to realize a purely secular 
statecraft in the political ideas of the Reformation. 
Certain ecclesiastical districts of Upper Germany 
(South Germany) were to be secularized, and 
various Imperial cities were to be attached to the 
dominions of the neighbouring princes. 

With good reason Austria complained how seri- 
ously this Bavarian Empire, guided by Prussia, 
threatened to harm the Nobility and the Church. 
If these crude thoughts entered into life, the Ger- 
man dualism was as good as done with; the con- 
stitution of the Empire, even if the forms remained, 
was transformed. 

Germany became an alliance of temporal princes 
under Prussia's governing influence. The eccle- 
siastical States, the Imperial cities, the swarm of 
small counts and princes, robbed of the support 
of the Habsburgs, fell into decay, and the hostile 
element in the heart of the Empire, the Crown of 
Bohemia, was conquered for the Germanic civil- 
ization. So Germany could by her own strength 
accomplish that necessary revolution which the 



144 The Life of 

decree of foreign countries, two generations later, 
insultingly imposed on her. But the House of 
Wittelsbach, estranged all the same from German 
life by its hereditary connection with France as 
by the severity of the Catholic unity of faith, 
showed in time a lamentable incapability. The 
nation failed to understand the promise of the 
moment. On a Rundreise round the Empire the 
King gained such a disconcerting insight into 
the dissensions, the avarice, the slavish fear of the 
small Courts, that he learned to moderate his 
German hopes for ever ; even his own power could 
not suffice to wholly break the gallant opposition 
of the Queen of Hungary. 

The second Silesian war ended, in spite of the 
triumphs of Hohenfriedberg and Kesselsdorf, in 
the restoration of the Austrian Empire. It re- 
mained in its constitution-less confusion, Francis 
of Lorraine ascended to the Imperial throne on the 
death of Charles VII, and the old alliance between 
Austria and the Catholic majority on the Imperial 
Diet was renewed. 

The solution of German dualism miscarried; 
more hostile than ever, the parties in the Empire 
separated. However, the King remained sure of 
a lasting advantage: the position of Prussia as a 
Great Power. He had saved the Bavarians from 
downfall, had strengthened the forces of his 
country by more than a third, had broken with a 
bold stroke the long chain of Habsburg-Wettin 
provinces which surrounded the Prussian State in 



Frederick the Great 145 

the south and east, and humiliated the proud 
Kaiser-House for the first time before a prince of 
Germany. For all his victories he had to thank 
his own strength alone, and he met the old Powers 
with such determined pride that Horatio Walpole 
himself had to admit that this Prussian King had 
now the scales of the balance of power in Europe 
in his hands. 

Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, all the Central- 
States, who had till this been contending with the 
Crown of Prussia, had been for ever thrown into 
the second line through the Silesian wars, and 
high above the countless small rivalries which cleft 
the Empire, rose the one question: Prussia or 
Austria? 

The question of Germany's future had taken 
definite form. The King now looked down on the 
tumult of the German (Imperial) States from a 
clear elevation. He liked giving to offensive 
demands the mocking answer, did one take him 
perhaps for a Duke of Gotha or for a Rhine Prince ? 
He played already to the small neighbours the r61e 
of the well-meaning patron and protector, which 
he had defined as the noble duty of the strong in 
his Anti-Machiavellism, and already a small Prus- 
sian Party gathered in the Reichstag, and the 
North-German Courts let their princes serve in the 
army of the King. 

In the meantime, the new acquisition grew, 
together with the Monarchy, surprisingly quickly ; 
the State experienced for the first time on a wide 



146 The Life of 

sphere those advantages and improvements which 
it has since then preserved everywhere in German 
and half-German countries. The fresh powers of 
the modern world made their entry even into the 
most neglected province, held down with temporal 
and ecclesiastical oppression; the dominion of the 
aristocracy was supplanted by monarchical bureau- 
cracy, nepotism by strict justice, intolerance by 
religious liberty, the deep soul-slumber of priestly 
teaching by German educational systems ; the dull 
servile peasant learned to hope for a morning again 
and his King forbade him to kiss the robe of the 
official, kneeling. 

No other State in that century of struggles for 
supremacy presented such many-sided, such dig- 
nified problems. Only the peaceful work effected 
by the government gave the conquest of Silesia 
moral justification, and demonstrated that that 
much-blamed hazardous enterprise had been a 
German achievement. The glorious border- 
country, already half flooded with foreign influ- 
ences, was given back to the German nation 
through the Prussian regime. 

Silesia was the only one of the German-Austrian 
hereditary countries where the policy of a single 
faith could not boast of a full conquest. With 
invincible tenacity, the Hght-hearted, gay German 
race in the valleys of the Riesen Mountains resisted 
the bloody deeds of the Lichtenstein dragoons as 
they resisted the persuasive powers of the Jesuits. 
The majority of the Germans remained true to the 



Frederick the Great 147 

Protestant faith; oppressed and neglected, robbed 
of all its possessions, the Evangelical Church pro- 
longed a miserable life; only the threats of the 
Crown of Sweden provided them with the few 
churches which remained to them, in addition to 
the possession of various Gnadenkirchen. ^ 

The Catholic Poles of Upper Silesia and the 
Czech colonists, whom the Imperial Court had called 
into the country to battle against the German 
heretics, were the supports of the Imperial domin- 
ion. On the entry of the Prussian army, German 
patriotism again lifted its head gladly. From the 
Gnadenkirchen rang joyously the praise of the Lord, 
Who had turned His face from them, and Who 
now set up a banner for them. Under the protec- 
tion of the Prussian religious toleration Pro- 
testantism soon won back the consciousness of its 
ecclesiastical superiority, Polish nationality lost 
ground visibly, and after a few decades the Prus- 
sian Silesians stood nearer in thought and customs 
to their North-German neighbours than to the 
Silesians on the other side of the frontier. 

The Protestant conquerors left the Roman 
Church in possession of the entire Evangelical 
Church property, and while England forced the 
Irish Catholics to support the Anglican State 
Church by tithes, in Silesia the Protestant had, 
as before, to pay taxes for the Catholic Church. 

' Churches which Austria allowed the Protestants to build by 
the treaty of Altranstadt or Friedenskirchen (1707) at Sagan, 
Freistadt, Militsch, Landeshut, Teschen, and Hirschberg. 



148 The Life of 

Nothing but the traitorous intrigues of the Roman 
clergy during the Seven- Years' War made it neces- 
sary for the King to withdraw this excessive 
indulgence, which led to injustice against the 
Evangelicals; but even then the Catholic Church 
remained more favourably placed than in any other 
Protestant State. 

The flourishing condition of the Silesian country 
under the Prussian sceptre showed sufficiently that 
the new province had found her natural master, 
that the crisis in Eastern Germany had terminated 
irrevocably. Still, the Court of Vienna was undis- 
concerted and held firmly to the hope of avenging 
the insult it had suffered, and of pushing down the 
conqueror of Silesia once more into the motley 
crowd of German Imperial provinces, like all the 
other upstart States who before the rebellion had 
presumed against the Imperial Power. King 
Frederick knew, too, that the last and crucial 
clash of arms was still imminent. 

During the short years of peace he once tried 
to exclude the son of Maria Theresa from the 
Imperial dignity, in order to separate the House 
of Austria from the Empire for the future. The 
plan was frustrated by the opposition of the 
Catholic Courts. The irreconcilable opposition of 
the two leading powers of Germany decided for 
a long time ahead the drift of European politics, 
and drew from the Holy (Roman) Empire the last 
spurt. 

With anxious foreboding, the nation saw another 



Frederick the Great 149 

Thirty -Years' War on the horizon. What had 
ripened in the quiet work of hard decades appeared 
to the next generation merely as a wonderful 
chance, as the happy adventure of an ingenious 
brain. Outstanding among the diplomatic cor- 
respondence of the period is the prophecy of the 
Dane Bemstorff, who, in the year 1759, wrote 
sadly to Choiseul: "Everything which you under- 
take to-day to prevent the rise of an entirely 
military Monarchy in the middle of Germany, 
whose iron arm will soon crush the minor princes — 
is all labour wasted!" 

All the neighbouring Powers, both east and west, 
bore a grudge against the lucky prince who alone 
had carried off the great prize out of the confusion 
of the War of the Austrian Succession, and truly, 
not only the personal hate of mighty women wove 
at the net of the great conspiracy which threatened 
to draw together over Frederick's head. Europe 
felt that the old traditional form of the Balance of 
Power would totter as soon as the conquering 
Great Power established itself in the middle of the 
continent. 

The Vatican saw with anxiety how the hated 
home of the heretics received its liberty again ; only 
through the intervention of Rome was it achieved 
that those old enemies, the two great Catholic 
Powers, Austria and France, united in contest 
against Prussia. Its aim was to perpetuate the 
impotence of Germany. 

By a bold attack the King saved his kingdom 



150 The Life of 

from certain ruin, and when he had for seven 
terrible years defended his German State on the 
Rhine and the Pregel, on the Peene and the Riesen 
Mountains, against foreign and half -foreign armies, 
and in peace had maintained the integrity of his 
power down to the last village, Prussia seemed to 
stand in exactly the same place as it had stood at 
the beginning of the murderous struggle. He had 
not won a yard of German soil, half the land lay 
devastated, the rich results of three generations of 
peaceful industry were almost annihilated, the 
unlucky new mark^ had to begin the work of 
rehabilitation from the beginning for the fourth 
time. 

Even the King himself could never think with- 
out bitterness of those terrible days, when the 
torture of every disaster which one man can bear, 
almost beyond human endurance, was heaped on 
his shoulders; what he suffered then appeared to 
him as the wantonly malicious mood of a spiteful 
providence, as a tragedy without justice or ter- 
mination. For all that, there lurked a colossal 
achievement in the sequel of the struggle which 
seemed so unfruitful; — the new order in Germany, 
which, begun with the foundation of the Prussian 
power, had stood the severest imaginable test, and 
had proved an irrevocable necessity. A hundred 
years before Germany was only able to resist the 
dominion of the Habsburgs by the struggles of an 

'The "Neumark" is a part of the Prussian Province of 
Brandenburg. 



Frederick the Great 151 

entire generation, and then had ignominiously to 
bribe foreign auxiliaries; now seven years sufficed 
for the poorest provinces to repulse the attack of 
a world in arms, and German might alone decided 
the war, for the sole foreign Power which stood 
at the side of the King faithlessly betrayed him.^ 
Germany's star was again in the ascendant. The 
text which went up exultingly from all Prussian 
churches: "They have often oppressed me from 
my youth up, but they have not overcome me," 
could be said of Germany. 

At the beginning of the second campaign, 
Frederick had cherished the proud hope of fighting 
his Pharsalia against the House of Austria, and of 
dictating peace before the walls of Vienna; at 
that pregnant moment the birth of a great new 
civilization in the distant future could be recog- 
nized, and an alliance of Prussia with Austria's 
other rival, with Piedmont, was already attempted. 

Then the battle of KoUin threw the King back 
on his defences : he had to struggle for the existence 
of his State. His attempt to form an Opposition- 
Reichstag, a North-German Union to oppose to 
the Imperial tie, came to nothing through the 
unconquerable jealousy of the small Courts, and 
chiefly through the haughty reluctance of the 
Guelph ally. For the abolition of German dualism, 
for the rebuilding of the Empire, the hour had not 
yet come; but through the frightful actuality of 
this war the ancient and obsolete forms of the 

^ England. 



152 The Life of 

German community were morally annihilated, the 
last veil torn away from the great lie of the Holy 
(Roman) Empire. 

So far no Kaiser had committed outrages against 
the Fatherland in such an irresponsible way as this 
Lorraine augmenter of the Empire, who opened all 
the gates of Germany to foreign plunderers, de- 
livered up the Netherlands to the Bourbons, and 
the eastern provinces to the Muscovites. And 
while the Kaiser trampled on his oath, and forfeited 
every right of his House to the German crown, at 
Regensburg the shameless farce of the Reichstag 
and its criminal anathemas was played. The 
Reichstag cried to the conqueror of Silesia its 
Darnach hat Er, Kurfiirst, Sich zu richten ("Ac- 
cording to that he, the Kurfiirst, must conform"). 
The Ambassador of Brandenburg threw the mes- 
senger of the illustrious assembly downstairs; the 
Imperial army gathered together hurriedly under 
the flag of the Bourbon enemy of the Empire, to 
scatter at once like chaff in the wind before Seyd- 
litz's squadrons of cavalry. The German nation 
celebrated with joyous exultation the victor of 
Rossbach, the rebel against Empire and Emperor. 

With this confused satyr-play the great tragedy 
of the Imperial history was brought indeed to a 
close; what was left of the old German com- 
munity scarcely preserved even the semblance of 
life. 

But the conqueror who, in the thunder of battles, 
had thrown overboard the old theocratic ideas, 



Frederick the Great 153 

was the protector of Protestantism. Exhausted 
as the ecclesiastical rivalries appeared to the age 
of enlightenment, Frederick recognized that the 
permanency of the Westphalian Peace, the equaUty 
of the creeds in the Empire, would not be main- 
tainable when once the two great CathoHc Powers 
triumphed; the common Protestant cause offered 
him the only handle to force the faint-hearted 
minor princes into war against Austria. 

Watchfully his eye followed the intrigues of the 
priesthood at the Protestant courts; his authority 
protected the freedom of the Evangelical Church 
in Wiirttemberg and Hesse, when the successors 
to their thrones went over to the Roman faith; 
and more clearly than he himself, his minor North- 
German allies recognized the religious significance 
of the war ; in the letters of the Hessian Minister, 
F. A. von Hardenberg, the allies of Prussia were 
called simply "the Evangelical provinces," and 
faithful adherence to the Prussian party was held 
up as the natural attitude of all the Protestant 
States of the Empire. 

Chanting his Lutheran hymns, the Prussian 
grenadier went out to battle; the Evangelical 
soldiers of the Swabian district ran away cursing, 
because they would not fight against their co- 
religionists; in the conventicles of the English 
Dissenters pious preachers prayed for the Macca- 
beus of Evangelism, the Free-thinker Frederick. 
The Pope presented the field-marshal of the Em- 
press with a consecrated hat and sword, and every 



154 The Life of 

new report of victory from the Prussian camp 
called up a storm of indignation and fear in the 
Vatican. 

A hundred and twenty years before, the Protest- 
ant world had lain at the feet of Rome, as if 
crushed and destroyed, when the flags of Wallen- 
stein's army waved on the shores of the Baltic, 
and the Stuarts endeavoured to subject their 
Parliament to their Roman influences. Now a 
great Protestant Power gave the last blow to the 
Holy (Roman) Empire, and through the wars on 
the Ohio and the Ganges it was decided once for 
all that sea and colonial power should belong to 
the Protestant and Germanic races. 

The struggle for Prussia's existence was the 
first European war; it created the unity of the 
new association of States, and gave it the aristo- 
cratic form of the Pentarchy. When the new 
great Central-European Power extorted the recog- 
nition of the neighbouring Powers, the two old 
political systems of the east and west melted into 
one inseparable community ; and at the same time 
the less powerful States, which occasionally before, 
through their entering into a coalition, had turned 
the scale in a great battle, but now could no 
longer meet the heavy demands of the new grandi- 
ose scale of war, sank in position. 

The States of the second rank decided to leave 
the control of European affairs to the great naval 
and military Powers for the future. Among these 
five leading Powers were two Protestant and one 



Frederick the Great 155 

schismatic; that Europe should fall back under 
the domination of the Crowned Priest (the Pope) 
was unthinkable from now on. The establishment 
of the great German Protestant Power was the 
heaviest defeat which the Roman Curia had suf- 
fered since the appearance of Martin Luther ; King 
Frederick had truly, as the English Ambassador 
Mitchell said, fought for the freedom of the human 
race. 

From the school of sufferings and struggles there 
sprang for the Prussian people a living sense of 
nationality : it justified the King in talking of his 
nation Prussienne. To be a Prussian had up to 
this been a stern duty : it was now an honour. 

The thought of the State, the Fatherland, forced 
its way, exciting and nerving, into millions of 
hearts; even the crushed soul of the poor felt a 
breath of the antique sense of citizenship which 
emanated from the simple words of the King: "It 
is not necessary that I should live, but very ne- 
cessary that I should do my duty and fight for 
my Fatherland." Everywhere in Prussia, under 
the stiff forms of an absolute monarchy, stirred 
the spirit of sacrifice and the great passion of the 
national war. 

The army which had been victorious in Fred- 
erick's last battles was national; recruiting in 
foreign countries was in the nature of things 
impossible in the catastrophes of the period. The 
provincial estates voluntarily equipped those regi- 
ments which had saved the fortresses of Magde- 



156 The Life of 

burg, Stettin, and Kiistrin for the State; the 
Pomeranian seamen banded together to defend 
with their small navy the mouths of the Oder 
against the Swedes. For six years the officials, 
poor as church-mice, received no pay, and yet 
quietly discharged their duties as if it were an 
understood thing. 

Emulously all the provinces rivalled each other 
in carrying out their "damned duty," as the 
Prussian " phrase ran {ihre verfluchte Pflicht und 
Schuldigkeit) ; from the gallant peasant of the 
Rhenish county of Mors to the unhappy East- 
Prussians, who with quiet tenacious opposition 
had stood firm against the Russian conqueror, and 
would not be disturbed in their determined faith- 
fulness when the inexorable King accused them of 
falling-off and overwhelmed them with manifesta- 
tions of his displeasure. 

The educational power of war awakened again 
in these North-German races above all that rough 
pride, which once inspirited the invaders of Italy 
(Romfahrer) and the conquerors of the Slavs in 
the Middle Ages. The alert self-reliance of the 
Prussians contrasted strongly with the inoffensive, 
kindly modesty of the other Germans. Graf 
Hertzberg confidently refuted the doctrine of 
Montesquieu on the virtues of republicanism: 
where in republicanism had there flourished a 
stauncher public spirit than here, under the bracing 
northern sky, among the descendants of those 
heroic nations, the Vandals and the Goths, who 



Frederick the Great 157 

had once shattered the Roman Empire? The 
same spirit existed in the mass of the people; it 
was betrayed now in confident bragging, in the 
thousand satirical anecdotes of Austrian stupidity 
and Prussian Hussar strategies current, now in 
pathetic stories of conscientious fidelity. 

The young sailor Joachim Nettelbeck comes to 
Danzig, and is hired to row the King of Poland 
across the harbour; someone claps a hat on his 
head with the monogram of King Augustus; for 
a long time he resists, for it seems to him a betrayal 
of his Prussian King to wear the badge of a foreign 
sovereign; at last he has to submit, but the earned 
ducat burns in his hand, and as soon as he gets 
home to Pomerania he presents the ill-gotten 
money to the first Prussian invalid who crosses 
his path. So susceptible has the political pride in 
this nation become, which a few decades before 
was demoralized by its domestic troubles. 

It was not to be forgotten that to the two great 
princes of war, to C^sar and Alexander, from now 
onwards a Prussian was associated as third. In 
the character of the North-German, tmited to a 
tough perseverance, there is a strain of high- 
spirited light-heartedness, which loves to play 
with danger, and the Prussians found this charac- 
teristic of theirs again in the General Frederick, 
raised to the pitch of genius: when he, after a 
hard apprenticeship, ripened rapidly into the 
master, threw aside the cautious rules of the old 
ponderous science of war, and even to the enemy 



158 The Life of 

"dictated the precepts of war," being always 
ready to seek the decision in open battle; when 
he again raised the sharpest weapon, cavalry, to 
that place which was due to it in great battles; 
when he after every victory, and after each of 
his three defeats, always maintained anew "the 
prerogative of the initiative. " 

The successful results show how well the King 
and his people understood one another. A close 
circle of heroes gathered round the chief or King, 
and spread down to the lowest rank of the army 
that gay love of daring, that spirit of the offensive, 
which has remained the strength of the Prussian 
army in all its great periods. 

From the provincial nobles and Pomeranian 
peasants Frederick drew the feared Ansbach- 
Baireuth Dragoons and the Zieten Hussars, who 
soon surpassed the wild-riding races of Hungary in 
their mad dash and their spirited charges. With 
pride the King said that with such soldiers there 
was no risk : " A general who in other armies would 
be considered foolhardy, is considered by us only 
as doing his duty ! " The twelve campaigns of the 
Frederician period have given the Prussian people 
and army the martial spirit as their characteristic 
spirit for ever. Even to-day, when the conversa- 
tion turns to war the North-German falls invol- 
untarily into the expressions of those heroic days, 
and speaks, as did Frederick, of "brilHant cam- 
paigns" and "fulminant attacks." 

The good-hearted kindliness of the Germans 



Frederick the Great 159 

outside Prussia needed a long time to overcome 
its aversion to the hard realism of this Frederician 
theory, which so ungenerously attacked its enemy 
when it was least welcome. But when the great 
year of 1757 swept over the German nation, when 
victorious attack and heavy defeat, new daring 
recovery and new glowing victory crowded in 
bewildering haste, and when always from the wild 
flight of events stood out the picture of the King, 
uniformly great and commanding, the people 
felt themselves gripped heart and soul, and 
were staggered at this vision of sheer human 
greatness. 

The hard, weather-beaten figure of old Fritz, 
as the blows of an inexorable Fate had forged it, 
exercised its irresistible witchery on countless 
faithful souls, who had regarded the dazzling figure 
of the youthful Hero of Hohenfriedberg only with 
awe. The Germans were, as Goethe said of his 
Frankfurters, Fritz-mad (Fritzishgesinnt) — ' ' For 
what did Prussia matter to us?" — and watched 
with bated breath as the untamable man, year- 
out, year-in, warded off destruction. That over- 
whelming union of unmixed joy and love which 
occasionally illuminates the history of happier 
nations with a golden light, was, it is true, still 
denied to rent Germany. 

As Luther and Gustavus Adolphus, the only 
two heroes before that whose pictures had im- 
pressed themselves indelibly on the hearts of our 
nation, so Frederick was feared in the episcopal 



i6o The Life of 

lands ^ of the Rhine and the Main as the great 
enemy. But the vast majority of Protestants, 
and wide circles of the Catholic people, and, above 
all, certain leaders of the new learning and poetry, 
followed him with warm sympathy ; people caught 
at his witticisms, and told marvel after marvel 
of his grenadiers and hussars. The heart of the 
previously so humble race swelled at the thought 
that the first man of the century was ours, that the 
fame of the King sounded as far as Morocco and 
America. 

So far few knew that the Prussian battle-fame 
was only the ancient military glory of the German 
nation come to light again ; even Lessing occasion- 
ally spoke of the Prussians as of a half-foreign 
nation, and remarked with astonishment that hero- 
ism seemed as born in them as in the Spartans. 
Gradually even the masses began to feel that 
Frederick fought for Germany. The battle of 
Rossbach, the hataille en douceur, as he called it 
mockingly, was the richest in results for our 
national life of his victories. 

If in this domesticated race there still lived a 
political emotion, it was a silent animosity against 
French arrogance, which, so often chastised with 
the German sword, had always in the end remained 
in possession of the field, and was once again 
covering the Rhine-lands with blood and ruin. 
Now Frederick's good sword met it, and struck it 
down in a pool of shame; a shout of exultation 

* In German, crooked-staff lands {Krummstabslande). 



Frederick the Great i6i 

rang through all the German provinces, and the 
Swabian Schubart cried: Da griff ich ungestilm 
die goldene Harfe, darein zu stUrmen Friedrichs 
Lob ("Impetuously I seize the golden harp, to 
make it storm Frederick's praise"). 

For the first time in history the Germans in the 
Empire succumbed to a feeling like national pride, 
and they sang with old Gleim: Lasst uns Deut- 
sche sein und hleihen! ("Let us be and remain 
Germans.") The French officers returning from 
the German battle-fields proclaimed naively in 
Paris itself the praise of the victor of Rossbach, 
since their pride could not yet imagine it possi- 
ble that this little Prussia could ever seriously 
threaten the power of France; in German come- 
dies, however, the once-feared Frenchman now 
filled the role either of the butt or the] vain 
adventurer. 

A political understanding of the character of 
the Prussian State had not, it is true, come to 
the nation even yet; this learned people lived in 
a wonderful ignorance of the deciding factors of 
its modern history as well as of the institutions of 
its mightiest State-organization. 

If the victories of Frederick had somewhat 
appeased the old hatred against Prussia, even in 
the Protestant provinces of the Empire every 
citizen congratulated himself if he was not a 
Prussian. The industrious fictions of the Austrian 
party found willing listeners everywhere. "This 
free people," Frederick Nicolai wrote in the year 



i62 The Life of 

1780 from Swabia, "look down on us poor Branden- 
burgers as slaves." 

The force of the mighty State appealed only to 
strong and ambitious natures. From the begin- 
ning of the Frederician period a distinguished 
phalanx of the brilliant young men of the Empire 
had begun to enter into the Prussian service; 
some were impelled by their amazement at the 
King, others by the longing for exuberant activity, 
and some had a vague presentiment of the destinies 
of this Monarchy. 

It had now fully outgrown the narrow-minded- 
ness of provincial life and spontaneously absorbed 
all the healthy elements in the Empire, and found 
in the ranks of the immigrants many of her most 
faithful and capable servants, also her deliverer, 
the Freiherr Karl von Stein. 

With the Peace of Hubertusburg there dawned 
for the North-Germans four decades of deep peace ; 
that richly blessed time of peace, of which old 
Goethe afterwards thought so often with gratitude. 

At that time the old tradition of Prussia's 
poverty gradually became a fable. Social life, 
particularly in the capital, took on richer and freer 
forms, the national prosperity received a surprising 
impetus, German poetry entered on her great 
period. The war had at once simplified and ren- 
dered more difficult the position of the Empire. 
Of the old order there was nothing left but the 
still unsolved opposition of the two Great Powers. 
A presentiment of a difficult decision went through 



Frederick the Great 163 

the German world ; the minor Courts discussed in 
energetic conferences as to how they should protect 
themselves by forming an alliance of the minor 
Powers, in case another encounter of the "two 
German Colossi" threaten to crush them. But 
King Frederick, thoroughly aware of the infinite 
power of the inertia in this old Empire, resigned 
himself to recuperating the exhausted strength of 
his own State; his German policy for the future 
had for its only aim to keep out of the Empire 
every influence of foreign Powers and to balance 
the power of Austria. 

A great danger which threatened the German 
Power from the east snatched him from his peace- 
ful plans. The Polish Republic had been since 
the war subject to the will of the Czarina; the 
formal union of the shattered State with the 
Russian Empire appeared to be only a question 
of time. 

Then the idea of the division of Poland, which 
crossed the designs of the Russians and set bound- 
aries to their ambitions, dawned on Frederick. 
It was a victory of German policy, at once over 
the grabbing land-greed of Russia, and over the 
Western Powers, who were pushed aside regard- 
lessly by the boldly advancing Powers of the East. 

The necessary act, it is true, opened up to view 
immeasurable complications, since the decayed 
Empire of the Sarmatian aristocracy was now 
irretrievably approaching its downfall; but it was 
necessary, it saved faithful East Prussia fronj 



1 64 The Life of 

the return of Muscovite government, and ensured 
for the State the bridge between the lands of the 
Pregel and the Oder, which the Crown-Prince 
Frederick had already recognized as indispensable. 
The King appeared for the second time as the 
increaser of the Empire; he gave back again to 
the Greater Fatherland the stronghold of the 
dominions of the Teutonic order, the lovely 
Weichsel valley, which in days of yore the German 
knight wrested from the barbarians, the German 
peasant from the wrath of the elements. 

When the provinces of West Prussia "swore 
allegiance to the restored government" — as the 
festival medal of the oath of allegiance says 
significantly — in the refectory of the Grand 
Master's castle at Marienburg, the outrages upon 
this German land, three hundred years ago, from 
the arrogance of the Poles and the treachery of 
the provincial authorities, were expiated. The 
five hundred years' war between the Germans and 
the Poles for the possession of the Baltic coast was 
decided in favour of Germany. 

Then the State, itself still bleeding from the 
wounds of the last war, began the hard work of 
peaceful re-conquest. The Sarmatian nobility had 
committed horrible outrages in the Weichsel dis- 
trict, with that insolent disregard of the rights of 
others and the nationality of others which dis- 
tinguishes the Poles above all the nations of 
Europe. 

The new sovereign had to rule with more vigour 



Frederick the Great 165 

than before in Silesia to bring the German character 
back to honour in the famous old cities of German 
glory and industry, in Thorn, Culm, and Marien- 
burg, and to introduce again the rudiments of 
agriculture in the devastated land. And as once 
the first German conquerors wrested corn-lands 
from the marshes, so now out of the swamps, near 
the rising town of Bromberg, rose the busy Netze 
district, the creation of the second conqueror. 

Frederick himself surmised only vaguely what 
the re-acquisition of the country of the Teutonic 
Knights meant in the great continuity of German 
history; but the nation had become quite unfa- 
miliar with their own history — they scarcely knew 
that these districts had once been German. Some 
cursed with the harsh arrogance of a censor the 
ambiguous diplomatic moves which had paved the 
way for the partition of the country; others 
repeated credulously what Poland's old confeder- 
ates, the French, invented to stigmatize the parti- 
tioning Powers; the majority remained cold, and 
fortified themselves anew with the current idea 
that old Fritz had the devil in him {dass der alte 
Fritz den Teufel im Leib habe) . For the new bene- 
fit which he had conferred on our people, not one 
person in the Empire thanked him. 

The restless ambition of Kaiser Joseph II led 
the King back at the eve of his life to the idea 
of the Imperial poHcy which occupied his youth. 
The Court of Vienna gave up the appearance of 
Conservatism, which alone could ensure for the 



1 66 The Life of 

Kaiser-House respect in the Empire, and endeav- 
oured to compensate itself for the loss of Silesia 
in Bavaria. The whole course of Austrian history 
for two hundred years, the continually growing 
separation between the Imperial State and the 
Empire, was to be pulled up all at once by an 
adventurous invasion. Then King Frederick for 
the second time concluded his alliance with the 
Wittelsbachs, and with the sword prohibited the 
House of Austria from extending its power on 
German soil; more sharply and clearly than ever 
before the opposition of the two rivals came to 
light. 

The War of the Bavarian Succession showed in 
its plan of campaign, as in its political aims, sur- 
prising resemblances to the deciding war of 1 866, 
but Prussia did not draw the sword to free Ger- 
many from the dominion of Austria, as it did three 
generations later, but only to ward off Austrian 
encroachments and for the preservation of the 
status quo. Although the ageing hero no longer 
possessed the dash to carry out his plan of cam- 
paign on so large a scale as he had planned, 
Prussia's power proved itself strong enough to 
force the Court of Vienna to yield without any 
glowing military success. Bavaria was saved for 
the second time; the arrogant Imperial Court had 
to submit to "plead before the Tribunal of Berlin, " 
and the embittered Prince Kaunitz made that 
prophecy which was to be fulfilled on the field of 
Koniggratz, although not in the sense that the 



Frederick the Great 167 

prophet meant, that if ever the swords of Austria 
and Prussia clashed together again, they would 
not be retiirned to their sheaths until "the decision 
had fallen definitely, completely, and irrevocably." 

Almost more valuable than the immediate result 
was the enormous revulsion of opinion in the 
Empire. The dreaded disturber of peace, the re- 
bel against Emperor and Empire, now appeared 
to the nation as the wise shelterer of right; the 
small Courts, which had so often trembled before 
the Prussian sword, scared by Kaiser Joseph's 
restless plans, looked for help to the arbitrator at 
Sans Souci. In the peasant farms of the Bavarian 
Alps hung the picture of the old man with his 
three-cornered hat beside the national (Bavarian) 
Saint Corbinian. In the chorus of Swabian and 
North-German poets, who told of the fame of the 
King, mingled already isolated voices of the deeply 
hostile electorate of Saxony; the bard Ringulph 
sang in enraptured odes how "from the breast of 
the Almighty, ICing Frederick, your great battle- 
lusting spirit came." 

Only a short while before had K. F. Moser 
avowed that the vision of man was not capable of 
following this eagle in its loftiness, that perhaps 
hereafter there would appear a Newton of political 
science, capable of measuring the orbit of the 
Frederician policy. But now the Germans began 
to feel that this mysterious policy was wonderfully 
simple at bottom, that the Statesman Frederick, 
divested of every hatred, every love, quasi-im- 



i68 The Life of 

personal, always desired only what the clearly 
recognized position of his State demanded. 

When the rebellion broke out in North America, 
and the civilized world hailed the new sun which 
was rising in the West, Frederick did not conceal 
his joy. His own youthful Great Power was a 
new State, which had entered the circle of the old 
Powers with welcome; it did him good to see 
England, which had so shamefully betrayed him 
in the last war, and had then impeded him during 
the Polish negotiations in the acquisition of Dan- 
zig, now in painful embarrassment. He declared 
openly that he would not defend Hanover for 
ungrateful England a second time: he even once 
forbade the passage through his dominions of the 
English mercenaries, bought in Germany, because 
he was revolted by this sordid traffic in human 
beings, and still more because he needed the young 
men of the Empire for his own army. 

He made use of the distress of the Ocean-Queen 
to preserve the naval rights of the smaller Powers 
by an alliance of armed neutrality; after the 
peace, he, first among the European princes, con- 
cluded a commercial treaty with the young Re- 
public, and in it acknowledged that free, human 
comprehension of international law which has 
since then remained a faithfully preserved tradition 
of the Prussian State. But neither his hate of 
the "God-damn Government," nor the boundless 
popularity which saluted him in the (American) 
colonies, ever moved him to go one step beyond 



Frederick the Great 169 

the interests of his State. His old enemy Kaunitz 
still could explain the proud course of the Fred- 
erician policy only as springing from the im- 
measurable cunning of a demoniacal nature. 

But in the Empire the old mistrust gradually 
disappeared; its people observed that nowhere 
were their affairs weighed so soberly, so exactly, 
so watchfully, and so coldly as in the hermitage of 
Sans Souci. 

So the impossible happened — the high nobility 
of the Empire gathered round Frederick's flag of 
its own free will. Kaiser Joseph resumed his 
Bavarian plans — to shatter Prussia's power, as he 
himself admitted. He at the same time threatened 
the stability of his ecclesiastical neighbours with 
rash thoughts of secularization. A sudden terror 
gripped the small States when they saw their 
natural protector become an enemy; an alliance 
of the Central Powers was discussed, a league of 
the ecclesiastical princes, until at last the acknow- 
ledgment was forced that nothing could be done 
without Prussia's help. 

With youthful zeal the old King entered into 
the quarrel. All the alluring proposals which were 
put forward that he should share the possession of 
Germany with the Emperor he rejected as bait 
for "the common greed." He conquered his 
contempt for the minor princes, and realized that 
only through strict justice could he attach these 
people to himself. He succeeded in winning the 
great majority of the electors, and most of the 



170 The Life of 

more powerful princes, for his German Princes* 
Bund, and in maintaining the old Imperial Con- 
stitutions and the status quo of the Imperial States 
against the Kaiser. 

"Only the love of my Fatherland, and the duty 
of a good citizen," he wrote, "drive me at my 
age to this undertaking." What he had dreamt 
in his youth had an even more brilliant fulfilment 
for the patriarch: no longer hidden behind a 
Bavarian shadow-Emperor, as in the Silesian wars, 
but in the face of the whole world, the King of 
Prussia now came into the arena as the protector 
of Germany. All the neighboiu-ing Powers, who 
counted on Germany's weakness, saw the unex- 
pected turn of the Imperial policy with grave 
anxiety. France and Russia approached the Court 
of Vienna; the Alliance of 1756 bade fair to be 
renewed. The Tiu*in Cabinet, on the contrary, 
hailed the Princes' Bund with joy as "the tutelary 
god of the Italian States." 

For two hundred years the policy of federalism 
in the Empire had not got beyond a half start; 
but now that it leaned on the power of Prussia 
it suddenly won a large following. The memory 
of the times of Maximilian I and the Elector 
Berthold's attempts at reform rose again to the 
surface. The Princes' Bimd was formed to up- 
hold the Imperial theocratic Germany. But if it 
lasted, if Prussia maintained her position of leader 
at the head of the great Imperial States, the old 
forms of the Imperial Diet had to lose their mean- 



Frederick the Great 171 

ing; the prospect was opened up of shattering the 
Austrian system to its foundations, and as Graf 
Hertzberg joyfully proclaimed, of excluding the 
Archdukes from the great German institutions, of 
transferring the Imperial Crown to another house at 
the next election, and of placing the guidance of the 
Empire in the hands of the most powerful States. 

The young Karl August of Weimar proposed to 
submit the old privileges which ensured the House 
of Austria its unique position to an Imperial test. 
It almost seemed as if the great problem of Ger- 
many's future would be solved in peace. But the 
Princes' Bund could not last; and this bitter truth 
was hidden least of all from the common-sensible 
mind of the old King. Only a series of chance 
circumstances, only the defection of Kaiser Joseph 
from the old approved traditions of Austrian state- 
craft, had scared the minor princes into Frederick's 
arms; their trust of Prussia went no further than 
their fear of Austria. With the utmost reluctance 
the Electorate of Saxony submitted to the guidance 
of the younger and less aristocratic House of 
Brandenburg; Hanover showed itself hardly less 
mistrustful; even the humblest and weakest of 
the allied States, Weimar and Dessau, secretly 
discussed, so Goethe tells us, how they could 
protect themselves against their Prussian pro- 
tector's lust of power. 

As soon as the Hofburg (the Court of Vienna) 
dropped their covetous plans, the old natural 
formation of parties must revive ; the ecclesiastical 



172 The Life of 

princes, who now sought help in Berlin, could 
see in Protestant Prussia only the sworn enemy of 
their authority. Since Frederick knew this, since 
he penetrated his faithful confederates to the 
very marrow with his piercing gaze, he did not 
let himself be deceived by the success of the minute 
into imagining that this Schmalkaldic League was 
anything but a makeshift, a means of preserving 
the momentary balance. Karl August, in large- 
hearted enthusiasm, sketched bold plans for the 
building-up of the new Imperial Association; he 
thought of a customs' union, of military conven- 
tions, of a German code ; Johannes Miiller extolled 
the Princes' Bund in the most high-flown pam- 
phlets, Schubart in stirring lyrical effusions, and 
Dohm concluded a clever pamphlet with these 
words: "German and Prussian interests can never 
stand in one another's way." The discerning 
mind of the old King was not moved by such 
dreams; he knew that only a colossal war could 
break the power of Austria in the Empire; it 
sufficed him to keep it within the bounds of justice, 
because he needed peace for his country. 

For a serious reform of the Empire there were 
still lacking all the preliminary conditions; there 
was lacking, above all, the will of the nation. 
Even the Imperialist defenders of the Princes' 
Bund could not get beyond the old chimera of 
German freedom. The Josephin policy, so Hertz- 
berg stirringly protested, threatened to agglomer- 
ate the powers of Germany into a mass, to subject 



Frederick the Great 173 

free Europe to a universal monarchy; and in 
Dohm's eyes it appears as a praiseworthy aim of 
the new Bund to keep open the western borders of 
Austria, so that France can stride into it at any 
time on behalf of German freedom. 

The nation realized dimly that the existing con- 
ditions were not worthy to exist; in Schubart's 
writings the small Swabian territories are often 
described as an open dove-cot, which lay close to 
the claws of the royal weasel. But all these ideas 
and presentiments were held under by a feeling 
of hopeless resignation which modern energy can 
hardly understand ; the Germans felt as if an in- 
scrutable Providence had condemned this people 
to continue for all eternity in an abnormal State 
which had long lost every right to exist. 

When the great King departed, it is true, he left 
behind a generation which looked on the world 
more joyfully and proudly than its fathers, and 
enormously had the State power which might in 
the future bring Germany a new day been raised. 
But the question : By what ways and means could 
a vital scheme for the German community be cre- 
ated? appeared at Frederick's death still almost 
as problematical as it had been at his ascension to 
the throne; indeed, it had not once been seriously 
raised by the great majority of Germans. The 
first beginnings of a formation of parties in the 
nation scarcely existed; it seemed as if only a 
miracle from heaven could help the helpless. The 
terrible confusion of the situation was shown with 



174 The Life of 

sinister clearness by the one fact, that the hero 
who with his good sword had once proved the 
futiHty of the institutions of the Empire had come 
himself to defend these lifeless forms against the 
head of the Empire. 

If Frederick could only prepare, and not com- 
plete, the settlement of the German constitution, 
he had, on the other hand, deeply and lastingly 
influenced the inner policy of the German terri- 
tories, and brought our nation to a nobler public 
spirit and a worthier view of the character of the 
State. He stood at the end of the great days 
of unlimited monarchy, and yet appeared to his 
contemporaries as the representative of a new 
conception of the State, an enlightened despotism. 

Only genius possesses the strength for propa- 
ganda, is capable of gathering the resisting world 
round the banner of new ideas. As the ideas of 
the Revolution were first circulated effectively by 
Napoleon, so was that serious comprehension of 
the duties of the kingdom which governed the 
Prussian throne from the time of the Great Elector 
first transferred to the consciousness of the people 
by Frederick. Only after the brilliant successes 
of the Silesian wars was the gaze of the world, 
which so far had hung wonderingly on the mag- 
nificence of the Coiurt of Versailles, turned seriously 
to the imostentatious crown of the Hohenzollerns. 

In war and in his foreign policy the King showed 
the incomparable creative power of his genius; 
in the inner administration he was the son of his 



Frederick the Great 175 

father. He invigorated the traditional forms of 
the State with the strength of genius, developed 
the free and incomplete in a free and comprehen- 
sive spirit ; he did not imdertake to erect anything 
new. And yet he knew how to unite the idea of 
a political kingdom, which his father, as a firm, 
practical man, had realized, with the civilizing 
influences of the century ; incessantly he gave him- 
self and others an account of his doings. Already 
as Crown-Prince he had won a place among the 
political thinkers of the age; his Anti-Machiavel- 
lism remains, in spite of all the weakness of 
immaturity, surely the best and deepest exposition 
of the duties of the princely office in an absolute 
monarchy which was ever penned. Afterwards, 
in the first years of the joy of conquest, he wrote 
the Furstenspiegel ("Mirror for Princes") for the 
young Duke of Wiirttemberg; but louder than all 
theories spoke his actions, as he proved his words 
in the days of trial, and showed the world what it 
meant "to think, live, and die as a King." 

Lastly, Providence showed him that favour 
which even genius needs, if it is to impress its 
seal on a whole age : the good fortune of adequately 
living up to his gifts until a ripe old age. He was 
now the Nestor, the recognized first man of the 
Eiiropean princes. His fame raised the prestige 
of all thrones; from his words and deeds other 
Kings learned to think highly of their vocation. 

The old-established conception of the minor 
princes, that the land and the people belonged to 



176 The Life of 

the Most Serene Princely House, lost ground after 
Frederick drily observed: "The Sovereign has no 
nearer relation than his State, whose interests must 
always stand before the ties of blood." 

The dynastic overweening conceit of the Bour- 
bons showed up in its futility when he, on his 
ascension to the throne, turned his back to the 
light pleasures of life with the words: "My duty 
is my only god, " and then for half a century served 
this one god with all his strength, and to the thanks 
of his people gave always the deliberate answer: 
"For that I am here." With such secular impar- 
tiality no crowned head had ever spoken of the 
princely dignity as this autocrat, who unhesitat- 
ingly recognized the right of a Republic as of a 
parliamentary kingdom, and sought the greatness 
of absolute monarchy only in the arduousness of its 
duties: "The Prince should belong to the State 
head and heart ; he is the Pope of the Civil Religion 
of the State." 

The new generation of the high nobility fash- 
ioned itself by Frederick's example and the social 
ideas of the new civilization. The small sultans 
who raged in the time of Frederick William I were 
followed by a long succession of well-meaning, 
dutiful fathers of their peoples, such as Charles 
Frederick of Baden and Frederick Christian of 
Saxony, 

Already it often happened that, in the Prussian 
fashion, the princes had a military education; 
Christian toleration, the advancement of schools, 



Frederick the Great 177 

and the well-being of his people, were considered 
princely duties; individual minor States, like 
Brunswick, granted to the Press even greater 
freedom than Prussia itself. Even in certain 
ecclesiastical districts there was a change for the 
better ; the Miinster district extolled the mild and 
careful administration of Fiirstenberg. ^ 

Of course, it was not everywhere, and at one 
blow, that the deeply rooted offences of minor- 
princely despotism disappeared; the old bad 
practice of selling soldiers now, during the Amer- 
ican war, reached the summit of its infamy, and 
showed what the German princes were capable of. 
The Frederician system of benevolent absolutism 
for the benefit of the people often led in the narrow 
spheres of the minor States to empty sport, or to 
oppressive guardianship. The Margrave of Baden 
called his exchequer shortly: "the natural trustee 
of our subjects"; many a well-meaning minor 
prince abused his dominions by the new-fangled 
physiocratic system of taxation, by all sorts 
of unripe philanthropic experiments, and the 
Oettingen- Oettingen -Landesdirektorium had to 
give the inquisitive reigning prince an accurate 
account of the "names, breed, use, and external 
appearance" of the collective dogs to be found in 
princely lands, besides "additional, unpresuming, 
most humble advice." 

' There is a noble Westphalian family called Furstenberg, 
one of whom was Prince-Bishop of Miinster about this time, 
who effected important reforms in the administration. 



178 The Life of 

But, on the whole, the generation of princes of 
those eighty years formed the most honourable 
which had sat on German thrones for a long time. 
Wherever he could, the King opposed the excesses 
of his compeers, freed old Moser from prison, and 
ensured the Wiirttembergers the continuance of 
their constitution. The Empire as a whole lay 
hopeless, but in many of its members a new hopeful 
life was pulsing. 

And far beyond Germany's borders the example 
of Frederick carried influence. Maria Theresa 
became his most docile pupil; she spread the idea 
of the Frederician monarchy in the Catholic world. 
Surrounded by weak neighbours, old Austria had 
so far lived on careless and sleepy; only the 
strengthening of her ambitious rival in the north 
forced the Imperial State to exert her powers boldly. 
The North-German Haugwitz fashioned the ad- 
ministration of Austria, as far as was possible, 
according to the Prussian pattern, and from these 
Austrian reforms, in turn, came the enlightened 
despotism which from now on began its impetuous, 
violent attempts at a millennium in all Latin 
countries, in Naples and Tuscany, in Spain and 
Portugal. 

The pride of the Bourbons stood out longest 
against the new conception of the monarchy; 
at Versailles, with jeering smiles, it was told how 
at the Court of Potsdam the lord-high-chamber- 
lain had never yet handed the King his shirt. 
Only when it was too late, when the forces of the 



Frederick the Great 179 

Revolution were already knocking at the doors, 
did the French Court begin to surmise something 
of the duties of the kingdom. 

The Crown of the Bourbons never wholly 
emerged from the dull atmosphere of smug self- 
adulation and contempt of the people ; therefore it 
collapsed shamefully. But among the Germans 
the spirit of monarchism, which lay in the blood of 
our people, and even in the centuries of polycracy 
was never wholly lost, was strengthened anew by 
King Frederick. In no other nation of modern 
history has a kingship had such a large and high- 
minded view of its problems; therefore the Ger- 
man people remained, even when the time of 
the Parliamentary struggles came, the most faith- 
ful of the great civilized peoples to the idea of 
monarchy. 

The love of peace of the House of HohenzoUem 
remained alive even in its greatest war-princes. 
Frederick valued power, but only as a means 
for the well-being and civilization of the nations; 
that it should be an end in itself, that the struggle 
for power as such should bestow historic fame, 
seemed to him as an insult to the honour of a 
sovereign. Therefore he wrote his passionate 
polemic treatise against Machiavelli. Therefore, 
in his writings, he returned again and again to the 
terrible warning of Charles XII of Sweden. 

He might have felt secretly that in his own breast 
were working irresistible forces which might lead 
Jiim to similar errors ; and he was never tired of por- 



i8o The Life of 

traying the hollowness of objectless military fame, 
and had the bust of the King of Sweden contemptu- 
ously erected beneath the feet of the Muse in the 
round hall at Sans Souci. 

Already in his impetuous youth he had made 
up his mind about the moral objects of power. 

This State must become strong [he wrote at that 
time], that it may play the lofty role of preserving 
peace only from love of justice, and not from fear. 
But if ever injustice, bias, and vice gain the upper 
hand in Prussia, then I wish the House of Branden- 
burg a speedy downfall. That says all. 

When at the end of the Seven- Years' War he felt 
strong enough to preserve peace out of justice, 
then he turned his attention to the restoration of 
the national prosperity with such zeal that the 
army was actually injured. 

It is a fact: the general who had overwhelmed 
the Flag of Prussia with laurels left the army in 
a worse condition than he had found it on his 
ascension to the throne; he could not approach 
his father as a military organizer. He needed the 
industrial population for his devastated country, 
and therefore patronized on principle the enlisting 
of troops for his army in foreign countries. The 
regimental commanders were to draw up the 
register of their recruiting-districts in agreement 
with the Landrdte (sheriffs) and surveyors^ of 
taxes. 

From that time there occurred in every district 



Frederick the Great i8i 

each year that struggle between the military claims 
and the civil interests which, afterward, in chang- 
ing forms, occurred again and again in Prussian 
history. This time the struggle was decided 
in favour of political economy. The civil author- 
ities sought to preserve every man who was in 
any way capable or well-to-do from the red can- 
tonal collar. The King himself interfered to 
help, and freed from compulsory service numerous 
classes of the population — the new immigrants, 
the families of all traders and manufacturers, the 
household servants of landowners. Many cities 
— nay, whole provinces, as Ostfriesland — obtained 
privileges. Soon after the peace the majority of 
the army consisted of foreigners. 

Frederick thought highly of the army, and liked 
to call it the Atlas who carried this State on his 
strong shoulders; the military fame of the seven 
years had an after-effect; the service of the com- 
mon soldier, it is true, was counted in Prussia, 
as everywhere else in the world, as a misfortune, 
but not as a disgrace, as it was in the rest of the 
Empire. The King brought the great summer 
manoeuvres on the Mockerauer Heath to a tech- 
nical completeness which the art of manoeuvres 
has probably never reached since then. He was 
never tired of impressing on his officers "to love 
the detail, which also has its distinction," and 
wrote for their instruction his military handbook, 
the most mature of all his works. 

Not one improvement in military affairs escaped 



i82 The Life of 

him; at a great age he yet adopted a new arm 
of the service, the light infantry, the green Fusiliers 
according to the pattern of the American riflemen. 
The fame of the Potsdamer parade-ground drew 
spectators from all countries. In Turin Victor 
Amadeus and his generals faithfully copied every 
movement of the great Prussian drill-sergeant 
down to the bent carriage of the head; and when 
the young Lieutenant Gneisenau saw the pointed 
helmets of the grenadiers on parade glittering in 
the sun, he cried enthusiastically: "Say, which 
of all nations could well copy this marvellous 
sight.?" 

In spite of that, in Frederick's last years the 
army sank undoubtedly. The flower of the old 
officers' corps lay on the battle-fields; during the 
seven years — an unprecedented occurrence in the 
history of war — all the renowned generals, with 
scanty exceptions, were left on the field or were 
disabled; their successors had known war only in 
subalterns' positions, and looked for the secret of 
the Frederician conquests only in the mechanical 
exercises of the parade-ground. Among the for- 
eign officers were many doubtful adventurers who 
only courted favour; for the proud frankness of a 
York or a Bliicher there was no more room. 

The King, less friendly to the bourgeoisie than 
his father, believed that only the aristocracy had 
a sense of honour, and dismissed the bourgeois 
officers from the majority of the regiments. In the 
noble officers* corps there arose an aristocratic 



Frederick the Great 183 

arrogance (Junkersinn) , which soon became more 
intolerable to the people than the coarse roughness 
of earlier times. The old hired soldiers lived 
in the end comfortably with wife and child, in 
civil employment, and abominated war for a 
country which had always remained foreign to 
them. Frederick had already noticed with aston- 
ishment in the war of the Bavarian Succession how 
little this army accomplished; the reason for the 
deterioration he did not penetrate. The Eudae- 
monism of his age made it impossible for him to 
recognize the moral forces which swayed the army. 
He had once, after the custom of the period, formed 
Prussian regiments from Austrian and Saxon 
prisoners of war, and could not even learn by the 
desertions en masse of these imfortimate men; he 
had in the last years of the war sufficiently experi- 
enced what an army of his own people was capable 
of, yet such forcible calling out of the entire 
national strength always remained to him only an 
expedient for desperate days, "when the defence 
of the Fatherland and an imminent danger depends 
on it." 

Of his statesmen, Hertzberg alone had religiously 
observed the daring ideas of Frederick William I ; 
he wanted to gradually purge the army of all 
foreigners. "Then we shall be as imconquerable 
as the Greeks and the Romans!" But the old 
King saw with satisfaction how his tmfortunate 
land was being strengthened agriculturally, and 
now defined the ideal of the army with the astound- 



1 84 The Life of 

ing words: "The peaceful citizen shall not even 
notice when the nation is at war." So one of the 
pillars which upheld the edifice of State — universal 
service — began slowly to totter. 

The traditional class-system of the estates of the 
realm and the organization of government de- 
pendent from it the King upheld more strictly 
than his father; he helped with instruction and 
ruthless coercion, with gifts and loans, as often 
as the role which was prescribed for the peasant, 
the citizen, or the nobleman in the household of 
the nation no longer seemed to suffice him. 

The nobility was to remain the first rank in the 
State, since "I need them for my army and my 
civil administration." By the mortgage institu- 
tions, and by considerable support with ready 
money, Frederick attained the conservation of the 
large estates of the nobles after the devastation 
of the years of war. Therefore he made as little 
attempt as his father to abolish the serfdom of the 
peasants, which was so repugnant to his magna- 
nimity. By the common law, it is true, the 
harsher forms of serfdom were done away with, 
but there still remained the somewhat less op- 
pressive hereditary rights of the dynasty. The 
Government contented itself with modifying the 
harshness of the existing lordship. 

Unnoticed and undesired by the older princes, 
in the meantime there began a displacement of 
the conditions of social power, which was rich in 
results. The new literatiu-e drew an educated 



Frederick the Great 185 

public from all classes ; the merchants and trades- 
people of the great cities, the simple tenants of 
the enlarged dominions of the monarchy, gradually- 
attained to an assured position and to a conviction 
that the privileges of the nobility could not endure 
much longer. The nobility lost by degrees the 
moral as well as the economic foundations of their 
rank. The structure of the old class-organization 
was imperceptibly undermined. 

The administrative arrangements of the father 
remained unchanged under the son, except that 
he added to the provincial departments of the 
General Direktorium four new ones, embracing the 
entire State, for the administration of War, Mer- 
cantile Policy, Mining Matters, and Forestry, and 
thus made another step on the way to a united 
State. The Crown still stood high above the 
people. Gensdarmes had to force the peasants to 
use the seed-potatoes presented by the King; the 
command of the Sheriff (Landrat) and the Board 
enforced against the tenacious passive opposi- 
tion of the parties concerned communal drainage 
and other enterprises, and all improvements of 
agricultural appliances. The wholly exhausted 
energies of the people for civil industries could 
only be reawakened by a violent system of 
protection. 

The flaws of the Frederician political economy 
were not due to the eternal and well-meant inter- 
ference of the supreme power, which the age had 
in no way outlived, but in the fiscal deceptions 



1 86 The Life of 

which the King was compelled to resort to through 
the embarrassments of his affairs; he had to use 
fully three quarters of his revenue for the army, 
and sought to make up what was necessary for his 
administration by monopolies and indirect taxes. 
The finances in their clumsiness resembled those 
of a large private household. Almost half the 
regular revenues came from the Crown lands and 
forests; only this rich property of the State ren- 
dered his high expenditure possible; it served at 
the same time for the technical education of the 
peasants. The amount of the principal taxes was 
fixed by statute; the movable revenue of the ad- 
ministration had to be drawn on for the extra- 
ordinary expenses of settling people on the soil 
and cultivating. 

The carefully accumulated treasure sufficed for 
several short campaigns; but old Prussia could 
not carry on a long severe war without a foreign 
subsidy, since the laws of the Landtag, the tradi- 
tional views of the bureaucracy, and the crude 
financial system, forbade every loan. Strong as 
was the growth of the wealth and well-being of 
the middle-classes, the greater advance of the 
more fortunate neighbouring peoples was not 
easily caught up. The Prussian State still re- 
mained the poorest of the Great Powers of the 
West; essentially an agricultural land, it played a 
modest role in international commerce, even after 
Frederick had opened up an avenue to the North 
Sea by the conquest of Ostf riesland ; for the 



Frederick the Great 187 

mouth of the Ems, like the mouth of the Oder, 
had no rich industrial Hinterland. 

As a reformer, Frederick was effective only in 
those spheres of the inner affairs of the State 
which his predecessor had not understood. He 
created the new Prussian Bench of Judges, as his 
father formed the modern German Bureaucracy. 
He knew that the administration of justice is a 
political function, which is inseparably connected 
with the State; he made all his dominions inde- 
pendent of the Imperial High Court of Justice, 
forbade the introduction of the interpretations of 
the Faculty of Jurists, created a Ministry of Justice 
in addition to the General Direktorium, gave the 
entire administration of justice into the hands of 
a hierarchically organized State Bureaucracy, 
which itself educated its rising generation, and 
took under strict superintendence that private 
(or independent) jurisdiction which still continued 
to exist in some minor departments. 

The absolute independence of the courts of 
justice in relation to the Administration was 
solemnly promised, and kept inviolably, with the 
exception of a few cases of well-meaning despotic 
high-handed justice. The new Bench preserved 
in a modest domestic position an honourable 
class-feeling, and while the Imperial courts were 
full of corruption, the proud saying was coined in 
Prussia, and that against the King: II y a des 
juges a Berlin. The desire often obtruded itself 
upon the friend of Enlightenment, to whom the 



i88 The Life of 

State was the work of the conscious human will, 
that not an inherited and traditional law but a 
law founded on experience, such as was generally 
desired, must reign in the State; all his life Fred- 
erick cherished the idea of carrying out the first 
comprehensive codification of the law which had 
been attempted since the time of Justinian. 

Only after his death did the Allgemeine Land- 
reclif come in force, which shows more clearly than 
any other work of the epoch the double-sidedness 
of the Frederician conception of the State. On 
the one side, the code preserved the traditional 
social distinctions so carefully that the entire 
legal system had to accommodate itself to the 
class organization, and even — against the common 
law — the nobilit}^ were granted special marriage 
laws, and on the other it carried the idea of the 
sovereignty of the State to its logical conclusion 
with such daring, that many a passage anticipated 
the ideas of the French Revolution, which made 
IMirabeau say that with these ideas Prussia hurried 
on a century ahead of the rest of Europe. 

The aim of the State is the general well-being, 
and only for the sake of this end may the State 
limit the natural freedom of the citizens — and 
repeal any existing privilege. The King is only 
the head of the State, and has duties and rights 
only as such — and this in the days when Biener 
and other renowned lawyers were fighting for the 
privileges and rights of the German princes to 

' The common law of the period. 



Frederick the Great 189 

their land and serfs as an incontestable legal maxim 
in the face of the whole country. The supreme 
power, exempt from the sphere of the civil law, 
interfered, ruling and advising, in all private af- 
fairs, and dictated moral duties to parents and 
children, landowners and servants; they ventured 
through their all-embracing legislative wisdom 
to settle every possible lawsuit of the future at 
the outset. 

With this code the old absolutism said its last 
word: it surrounded its power with fixed barr'ers, 
raised the commonwealth to a constitutional 
State; and at the same time it unsuspectingly 
entered upon the path which must lead to a new 
juridical union of the German people, in that it 
destroyed the validity of the Roman law. The 
mechanical conception of the State of the Fred- 
erician period was soon afterwards replaced by 
a deeply penetrating philosophy, the incomplete 
jurist training of Carmer and Suarez by the work 
of historical jurisprudence; but the Allgcmeine 
Landrecht ^ nevertheless remained for some decades 
the firm foundation from which sprang all further 
reforms of the Prussian State. 

The belief in the authority of the law, a prelimi- 
nary condition of all political freedom, became a 
living power in the bureaucracy as well as among 
the people. If the State existed for the general 
welfare, an irresistible necessity, of which Fred- 
erick suspected nothing, led to the desire for the 

' The common law of the period. 



190 The Life of 

removal of the privileges of the upper classes and 
the participation of the nation in the government 
of the State. And sooner or later these conclu- 
sions had to be drawn, since already now only the 
genius and strength of a great man could deal 
with the difficult problems which this enlarged 
kingdom presented. 

Frederick did not promote the spiritual life of 
his people to nearly the same extent. We know 
from Goethe's confessions how fruitfully and in 
the interests of freedom the heroism of the seven 
years operated on the German civilization: how 
in those years of military glory a new import, an 
increasing sense of vitality, asserted itself in the 
exhausted literature, how the impoverished lan- 
guage, which had long sought to express mighty 
sentiments, now at last struggled up out of the 
insipidity an emptiness and found great words 
for great emotions: really, the first German 
comedy, Minna von Barnhelm, was created be- 
neath the beating of the drums of the Prussian 
camp. The Prussian people took a rich share in 
the wonderful awakening of the spirit, and pre- 
sented the literary movement with several of its 
pioneers, from Winckelmann down to Hamann and 
Herder. And wholly filled with the Prussian 
spirit was that new maturer form of German 
Protestantism which at last emerged victoriously 
out of the philosophical disputes of this "effer- 
vescing period" and became a common property 
of t' e North-German peoples: the ethics of Kant. 



Frederick the Great 191 

The categorical imperative of Kant could only 
be imagined on this ground of Evangelical free- 
dom and faithful self-sacrificing work. Where 
before rough commands extorted silent submission, 
now every free judgment was challenged, through 
the example of the King, who relied fearlessly on 
the strength of the enquiring mind and gladly 
confessed : who grumbles the most, goes farthest. 

Frederick carried on the old Prussian policy of 
Christian toleration liberally, and he proclaimed 
in his code the principle : ' ' The people's conceptions 
of God and godly things cannot be the subject 
of a coercive law." Nor did the Free-thinker 
give up the attempts at union of his ancestors, 
but strongly maintained that the two Evangelical 
Churches should not refuse each other the Holy 
Communion in case of necessity. The supreme 
ecclesiastical authority of the throne, which he 
claimed, ensured him against political intrigues 
on behalf of the clergy, and even allowed him to 
tolerate in his State the Society of Jesus, suspended 
by the Pope. 

He accorded the Press an almost unlimited 
freedom, since "newspapers, in order to be inter- 
esting, must not be interfered with." He defined 
all schools as "organizations of the State," and 
spoke readily and spiritedly of the State's duty 
to bring up the younger generation to independent 
thought and a sacrificing love of the Fatherland. 
He constantly extolled the illustriousness of learn- 
ing and poetry as the greatest ornament of the 



192 The Life of 

kingdom: he showed himself a German and a 
prince of peace in that he regarded the classics, 
and not the exact sciences, lilce the soldier 
Napoleon, as the spring of all higher education. 
Nevertheless, the King accomplished very little 
for the promotion of national education directly. 

The scarcity of money, the lack of competent 
board-school teachers, and the imceasing struggles 
now with foreign enemies, now with the economic 
question at home, rendered the carrying out of 
his plans more difficult; and in the end the dry 
utilitarianism of the father always broke out 
again in the son. This economical Prince would 
provide means for anything rather than for the 
purposes of instruction. 

When the Germans in the Empire sneered that 
this Prussia had starved itself into greatness, they 
thought chiefly of the Prussian teachers and 
scholars. Only what was absolutely necessary 
was done for the national schools; the repeatedly 
enjoined discipline of compulsory general attend- 
ance at school remained a dead letter for wide 
stretches of the country. None of the Prussian 
Universities attained the fame of the new Georgia 
Augusta.'^ Only towards the end of the Frederi- 
cian period, when Zedlitz, the friend of Kant, 
took over the direction of the educational organi- 
zations, did a somewhat freer impulse enter into 
the public instruction. At that time the worthy 
Abbot Felbiger reformed the Catholic national 

' The University at Gottingen, named after its founder. 



Frederick the Great 193 

schools, and found enthusiastic supporters in the 
Empire, so that in the end Catholic Germany 
participated in the greatest blessing of the Refor- 
mation. 

It seemed an easy thing to gather in Berlin a 
brilliant circle of the best intellects of Germany 
for pregnant activity. Every young genius in the 
Empire angled for the eye of the national hero. 
Even Winckelmann, who had once fled from the 
country in hot hatred, now experienced with what 
strong bands this State fettered the hearts of its 
sons. "For the first time," he wrote, "the voice 
of the Fatherland makes itself heard within me, 
which was iinknown to me before." He burned 
with an eager desire to show the Aristotle of mili- 
tary art that a born subject could achieve some- 
thing worthy, and negotiated for years for an 
appointment in Berlin. 

But in Frederick's French academy there was no 
place for German thinkers. The Medicean days, 
which one had once awaited from the inspired 
Prince of the Rheinsberger Parnassus, only came 
for the foreign intellects at the table of Sans Souci ; 
the pupil of French culture would not and could 
not understand the young unruly life which stirred 
in the depths of his own people. While the Ber- 
liner company intoxicated themselves to over- 
refinement with the idea of the new literature, 
and jeering scepticism and refined epicureanism 
were almost crowding out the old strict moral 
simplicity, the Prussian administration main- 
13 



194 The Life of 

tained their one-sided utilitarian bias which only 
troubled itself about everyday matters. That 
intolerably stiff, home-baked, prosaic spirit which 
was instilled into the State of the old Soldiei-King 
was somewhat humanized by Frederick but not 
broken ; only the baroque glory of the New Palace 
and the mighty cupolas of the Gensdarmenkirche^ 
made it possible to recognize that at least the 
barbaric culture-hatred of the thirties had begun 
gradually to give way. 

But still the Prussian State represented only 
the one half of our national life; the delicacy and 
the yearning, the profoundness and the enthusiasm 
of the German character, could not obtain just 
recognition in this prosaic world. The centre- 
point of the German policy was not the home of 
the intellectual work of the nation; the classical 
period of our poetry found its scene of action in 
the minor States. 

In this momentous fact lies the key to many 
puzzles of modern German history. To the coolly 
averted attitude of King Frederick our Literature 
owes the most precious thing it possesses — ^its 
imequalled freedom; but this indifference of the 

' I cannot find out about this anywhere, but there is the 
Gensdarmenmarkt, with the French Church and the New 
Church, because Frederick was fond of French things. But in 
Baedeker, it does not say anything about the change of name, 
though it does say that the two churches with the theatre form 
the finest group of buildings in Berlin. In an 1893 Baedeker, it 
says that they are of the last century, which would make it 
about the time. — L. S. 



Frederick the Great 195 

Crown of Prussia during the days which decided 
the character of modern German culture was to 
blame for the fact that it was for a long time 
difficult for the heroes of German thought to 
understand the one vital State in Germany. After 
Frederick's death two full decades elapsed before 
Prussia gave hospitable reception to the intellec- 
tual powers of the new Germany; and then more 
long decades passed before German learning re- 
cognized that it was of one blood with the Prus- 
sian State, that the State-organizing power of 
our people had its root in the same strong idealism 
which inspired the German intellectual curiosity 
and artistic industry to bold daring. 

Frederick's coldness towards German culture is 
perhaps the saddest, the most unnatural pheno- 
menon in the long history of the suffering of 
modern Germany. The first man of the nation, 
who awakened again in the Germans the courage 
to believe in themselves, was quite a stranger to 
the noblest and most characteristic works of his 
people; it cannot be expressed too clearly and 
strongly, how slowly and with what difficulty 
this people threw off the hard inheritance of 
the thirty years, the spiritual supremacy of the 
foreigner. 

Frederick was not, like Henry IV of France, a 
faithful representative of the national vices and 
virtues, intelligible to the national disposition 
in every undulation of his mood. Two natures 
struggled within him: the philosophical scholar, 



196 The Life of 

who revelled in the sound of music, in the melody 
of French verse, who considered poetical fame 
the greatest happiness on earth, who cried to his 
Voltaire in honest admiration: "Destiny bestowed 
on me the empty show of rank, on you every 
talent; the better portion is yours" — and the 
robust North-German man, who stormed at his 
Brandenburgers with rough Brandenburg Jod,^ 
a model of martial courage, restless energy, and 
iron severity, for the stern, austere people. 

The French enlightenment of the eighteenth 
century was tainted with a deep insincerity: it 
had neither the will nor the strength to make the 
life agree with the idea: people raved of the holy 
simplicity of Nature, and were unutterably pleased 
with the most unnatural customs and costumes 
which ever governed the European world; people 
jeered at the absurd chance of birth, dreamed of 
the original freedom and equality, and yet lived 
gaily on in an insolent contempt of humanity, 
and all the sweet sins of the old fawning society, 
borne up with the hope that sometime in a distant 
future Reason would set up her throne on the 
fragments of all existing things. 

At the Prussian Court, witty, malicious Prince 
Henry was a faithful representative of this new 
culture; theoretically a disdainer of that empty 
smoke, which is called fame and power by the 
mob, practically a man of hard and fast concep- 
tion of political rulership, unscrupulous, versed 

' Idiom. 



Frederick the Great 197 

in all tricks and intrigues. And Frederick, too, 
in his way, led this double life of the men of the 
French enlightenment. ^ His was that tragic fate 
to think and to speak in two languages, neither 
of which did he absolutely master. The crude 
gibberish which was shouted at the Tahakskolle- 
gium (smoking club, or the Tobacco Parliament 
of Frederick William I of Prussia) of his father 
seemed to the beauty-intoxicated youth just as 
offensive as the ponderous literary German of 
the learned pedantism which he came to know from 
the works of orthodox theologists; good or evil, 
he contented himself with this clumsy language, 
discharged passing business now in rough dialect, 
now in stiff pulpit-style. 

For the world of ideas, with which his head 
bubbled over, he found worthy expression only in 
the language of cosmopolitan culture. He knew 
well that his bizarre and Teutonic^ Muse spoke a 
barbaric French, and in the consciousness of this 
weakness estimated the art-worth of his verses 
at a lower value than they deserved. The one 
thing, at least, which makes the poet, the protean 
gift, was in no way denied him. His Muse com- 
manded the whole scale of emotions; she now 
expressed with lofty earnestness the great and 
noble, now, in a satirical mood, with the mischiev- 
ousness of an elf — or, to tell the truth, with the 

' The period of Voltaire, the period preceding the Revolution, 
humanistic in character. 

* In the original "tudesque." 



198 The Life of 

mischievousness of a Berlin street-arab — teased 
and tormented her victim. And yet instinct tells 
him that the richness of his mind does not flow so 
full and clear in his verses as in the notes of 
his flute; the fullest melody, the deepest feeling 
were unattainable to the German in the foreign 
language. 

The philosopher of Sans Souci never became 
quite at home in the foreign culture which he so 
earnestly admired. Above all, the strictness of 
his moral conception of the world divided him 
from his French companions. It is the greatness 
of Protestantism, that it imperiously commands 
or requires the unity of thought and will, the unity 
of the religious and moral life. 

Frederick's moral training was too deeply 
rooted in the German Protestant life not to per- 
ceive the secret weakness of the French philosophy. 
He viewed the Church with a more liberal mind 
than the Catholic Voltaire, who, in his Henriade, 
the gospel of the new toleration, in the end arrived 
at the conclusion that all respectable people 
should belong to the Roman Church ; he had never, 
as Voltaire, bowed his neck to religious forms 
which his conscience condemned, and could endure 
with the calm serenity of the born heretic the fact 
that the Roman Curia placed his works on the 
Index of forbidden books. Although he from 
time to time condescendingly defined philosophy 
as his hobby, yet the reflection on the great prob- 
lems of existence was far more to him than an 



Frederick the Great 199 

ingenious pastime; in the fashion of the ancients, 
he sought and found in intellectual work the rest 
of the mind at peace with itself, that lofty superior- 
ity of the soul to all vicissitudes of fortune. 

After the errors of his passionate youth, he soon 
learned to subdue that impulse of artistic tender- 
ness and sensuality, which threatened to drive 
him to epicurean pleasures. Boldly as scorn and 
scepticism stirred in his head, the moral order of 
the Universe, the idea of duty, remained inviolable 
to him. The terrible earnestness of his life, wholly 
dedicated to duty, was divided as by all the breadth 
of heaven from the effeminate and loose morals 
of the Parisian enlightenment. As his writings 
— in that clear and sharp style, which at times 
becomes trivial, but never vague — always irre- 
sistibly aimed at a certain decided and palpable 
conclusion, so he wished to fashion his life accord- 
ing to what he recognized as truth; as far as the 
opposition of a barbaric world allowed, he sought 
to ensure in State and Society a humane concep- 
tion of things, which he called the cardinal virtue 
of every thinking being, and went to meet death 
with the calm consciousness "of leaving the world 
loaded with my good deeds." 

For all that, he never succeeded in wholly over- 
coming the duality of his mind. The struggle 
within betrays itself in Frederick's biting wit, 
which came out so harshly because the hero in 
his arrogant directness never thought of hiding it. 
The life of genius is always mysterious, but seldom 



200 The Life of 

does it appear so difficult to understand as in the 
richness of this dual mind. The King looks down 
with superior irony on the coarse ignorance of his 
Brandenburg nobility; he breathes freely when 
he can refresh himself from the boredom of this 
unintellectual company with the one man to 
whom he looks up admiringly, the Master of the 
French poetry; at the same time he recognized 
what he owed to the sword of that rude race, he 
could not find sufficient words to praise the cour- 
age, the fidelity, the honourableness of his nobility; 
he curbs his jeering before the stern Biblical 
faith of old Zieten. The French are welcome 
guests for the cheerful after-dinner hours; his 
respect belongs to the Germans. 

No one of the foreign companions got so near 
to the heart of Frederick as that " Seelenmensch " ^ 
Winterfeldt, who courageously maintained his 
German nature even against his royal friend. In 
his letters Frederick often yearned for the new 
Athens away on the Seine, and bewailed the envy 
of jealous gods, who had condemned the son of 
the Muse to rule over slaves in the Cimmerian 
land of the North. And yet he shared as patiently 
as his father the troubles and cares of this wretched 
people, glad from the bottom of his heart of the new 
life which was springing up under the rough fists 
of his peasants, and cried proudly: "I prefer our 
simplicity, even our poverty, to those damned 
riches which corrupt the dignity of our race." 

^ A man of great feeling and tactful understanding. 



Frederick the Great 201 

Woe to the foreign poets if they presumed to give 
the King political advice; hard and scornful he 
waved them back to the limits of their art. 

Vigorously as he was occupied with the ideas of 
the modern France, he was only a great author 
when he was expressing German thoughts in 
French words, when he spoke as a German Prince 
and General in his political, military, and historical 
works. Not in the foreign school, but through his 
own strength and an unrivalled experience, Fred- 
erick became the first publicist of our eighteenth 
century, the only German who approached the 
State with creative criticism, and spoke of the 
duties of the citizen in lofty style: no one before 
of that people without a country had known how 
to speak so warmly and deeply as the author of the 
Letters of Philopatros about the love of the Father- 
land. 

The old King no longer considered it worth the 
trouble to climb down from the height of his 
French Parnassus into the lowlands of the German 
Muse, and judge with his own eyes whether the 
poetical art of his people was not awakened at 
last. In his essays on German Literature, six years 
before his death, he repeated the old impeach- 
ment of the fastidious Parisian critic against the 
undisciplined wildness of the German language, 
and dismissed the horrible platitudes of Gotz von 
Berlichingen, which he had hardly read, with 
words of contempt. And yet this infamous dis- 
cussion itself gives an eloquent proof of the passion- 



202 The Life of 

ate national pride of the hero. He prophesied 
for the future of Germany a period of intellectual 
fame, which already irradiated the unsuspecting 
nation with its dawning glory. As Moses he sees 
the Promised Land lying in the distance, and 
concludes hopefully: "Perhaps the late-comers 
will surpass all their predecessors." So close and 
so distant, so foreign and so familiar, was the 
relationship of Germany's greatest King to his 
people. 

The great period of the old monarchy was set- 
ting. Round the King it became more and more 
silent; the heroes who had fought his battles, the 
friends who had laughed and revelled with him, 
sank one after the other into the grave ; loneliness, 
the curse of the great, came over him. He was 
never accustomed to spare with his irony any 
single human emotion ; for all the rapturous dreams 
of his own youth had been trampled underfoot by 
his pitiless father. In old age inconsiderate auster- 
ity became inexorable harshness. The stern old 
man, who in his rare leisure hoiH"s paced along the 
picture-gallery at Sans Souci with his greyhounds, 
or in the round temple of the Park dwelt dejectedly 
on his dead sister, saw far beneath his feet a new 
generation of tiny human beings growing up 
aroimd him : they must fear him and obey him ; he 
was indifferent to their love. The preponderance 
of one man weighed oppressively on the people. 
On the rare occasions when he went to the Opera 
House, opera and the singers seemed to the audi- 



Frederick the Great 203 

ence to be swallowed up; everyone gazed towards 
that place in the parterre where sat the failing old 
man, with the large, hard eyes. When the news 
of his death came, a Swabian peasant, from the 
hearts of countless Germans, cried: "Who will 
rule the world now?" 

To his last breath all the will-power of the 
Prussian Monarchy emanated from this one man; 
the day of his death was the first day of rest of his 
life. His will told the nation once more how differ- 
ently from the domestic politics of the minor 
courts was the HohenzoUerns' idea of kingship: 
"My last wishes at the moment of my death will 
concern the happiness of this State ; may it be the 
happiest of States through the mildness of its 
laws, the most justly administered in its internal 
affairs, the most valiantly defended by an army 
which breathes only honour and noble fame, and 
may it last and flourish imtil the end of time." 

A century and a half had elapsed since a Fred- 
erick William sought among the fragments of the 
old Empire the first materials for the building of 
the modern Great Power. Hundreds of thousands 
of Prussians had found a hero's death, colossal 
labour had been expended on the establishment 
of the new German kingdom, and at least one 
rich blessing of these terrible struggles was felt 
forcibly in the Empire: the nation felt at home 
again, mistress on her own soil. A long-missed 
feeling of safety beautified life for the Germans in 
the Empire; it seemed to them as if this Prussia 



204 The Life of 

was destined by Nature to protect the peaceftil 
industries of the nation with its shield against all 
foreign disturbers. Without this strong feeling 
of national ease our German poetry woiild never 
have found the joyous courage to achieve great 
things. 

Public opinion began gradually to be reconciled 
to the State which had grown up against their will; 
one took it up as a necessity of German life, with- 
out troubling much about its future. The difficult 
question : how such a bold conception of the State 
could be maintained without the invigorating 
strength of genius? — was only seriously raised by 
one contemporary, by Mirabeau, The old and 
new epochs gave each other a friendly greeting 
once more, when the tribune of the approaching 
revolution stayed at Sans Souci, shortly before 
the death of the King. With the glowing colour- 
splendour of his rhetoric, Mirabeau portrayed the 
greatest man he had ever beheld; he called Fred- 
erick's State a truly noble work of art, the one 
State of the present which could seriously occupy 
a brilliant mind; but it did not escape him that 
this daring building unfortunately rested on much 
too weak a foundation. The Prussians of those 
days could not understand such uncertainty; the 
glory of the Frederician epoch seemed so wonderful 
that even this most fault-finding of all European 
peoples was blinded by it. 

For the next generation the fame of Frederick 
proved fatal; men lived in delusive security, and 



Frederick the Great 205 

forgot that only renewed hard labour could uphold 
the work of unutterable toil. But when the days 
of shame and trial came, the Prussian again 
experienced the surviving efficacy of Genius; the 
memory of Rossbach and Leuthen was the last 
moral force which kept the leaking ship of the 
German Monarchy above water; and when the 
State once more took up arms for the struggle of 
despair, a South-German poet saw the figure of 
the great King descend from the clouds, and call 
to the people: "Up, my Prussians! Under my 
flag! and you shall be greater than your ancestors ! " 



TREITSCHKE AS A HISTORIAN 

Lord Acton says of Treitschke : 

"He is the one writer of history who is more bril- 
liant and more powerful than Droysen: he writes 
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen." 

Heinrich von Treitschke (1834- 1896) was a 
Saxon who in 1863 became Professor at Freiburg, in 
Baden, and in 1866 became a Prussian subject and 
editor of the Preussische Jahrbiicher. After being a 
Professor at Kiel and Heidelberg, in 1874 he became 
Professor at Berlin. From 1871 he was a Member of 
the Reichstag. At first a Liberal, he became the chief 
panegyrist of the House of Hohenzollern. According 
to the EncyclopcEdia Britannica: "He did more than 
anyone to mould the minds of the rising generation, 
and he carried them with him even in his violent 
attacks on all opinions and all parties which appeared 
in any way to be injurious to the rising power of 
Germany. He supported the Government in its 
attempts to subdue by legislation the Socialists, Poles, 
and Catholics; and he was one of the few men of 
eminence who gave the sanction of his name to the 
attacks on the Jews which began in 1878. As a 
strong advocate of colonial expansion he was also a 
bitter enemy of Great Britain, and he was to a large 
extent responsible for the anti-British feeling into 

207 



2o8 Treitschke as a Historian 

which so much of German Chauvinism was directed 
during the last years of the nineteenth century." 

"As a historian," says the E. B., "Treitschke holds 
a very high place. His work, indeed, lies entirely in 
the history of the last two centuries. He approached 
history as a politician ; he had none of the passion for 
research for its own sake, and confined himself to those 
periods and characters in which great political prob- 
lems were being worked out; above all, he was a 
patriotic historian, and he never wandered far from 
Prussia. His great achievement was the History of 
Germany in the Nineteenth Century. The first volume 
was published in 1879, and during the next sixteen 
years four more volumes appeared, but at his death he 
had only advanced to the year 1847. It will remain a 
fragment, and it is much to be regretted that he did 
not live to complete the account of the Revolution, in 
which he would have had a subject worthy of his 
peculiar powers. The work shows extreme diligence, 
scrupulous care in the use of authorities, and in the 
years he covered he has left little for future historians 
to discover. It is too discursive and is badly arranged, 
but it is marked by a power of style, a vigour of 
narrative, and a skill in delineation of character which 
give life to the most unattractive period of German 
history; notwithstanding the extreme spirit of par- 
tisanship and some faults of taste, it will remain a 
remarkable monument of literary ability. Besides 
this he wrote a number of biographical and historical 
essays, as well as numerous articles and papers on 
questions rising out of contemporary politics, of which 
some are valuable contributions to political thought, 
while others are political controversy not always of 
the best kind." 



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The Great Illusion 

By Norman Angell 

A Study of the Relation of Military 
Power to National Advantage. 

Fourth Edition Revised with Additional Material 
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diplomats, the mouthings of politicasters, as to the 
necessity of war. And from this to a brilliant arraign- 
ment of standing armies and navies and war establish- 
ments of all kinds is but another step in Mr. Angell's 
altogether splendid monograph. To use a familiar 
phrase, no book of similar trend in recent years has 
caused so many thinking men to sit up and take notice." 

St. Louis Globei'Detnocrat. 



Arms and Industry 

A Study of the Foundations of Inter- 
national Polity 

By Norman Angell 

Author of " The Great Illusion," etc. 

12°. $1.25 

In this book the author of " The Great Illusion " shows 
systematically and scientifically, though with the same 
clearness and simplicity which mark his earlier work, the 
nature of those forces which are transforming the re- 
lationship of states, and indeed, to some extent, the 
mechanism of organized society as a whole. 

New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London 



France Herself Again 

By Ernest Dimnet 

The well-known historian, Abbe Ernest Dimnet, draws 
a comparison between the demoralized France of 1870 
and the united France of to-day. Headings: The De- 
terioration of France ; Under the Second Empire; Under 
the Third Republic ; The Return of the Light ; Immediate 
Consequences of the Tangier Incident; Intellectual 
Preparation of the New Spirit; Evidences of the New 
Spirit; The Political Problems and the Future; France 
and the_,War of 19 14. 

S2.50 



Japan to America 

Edited by Professor Naoichi Masaoka, 
of Tokio. A Symposium of Papers by 
Statesmen and Other Leaders of Thought 
in Japan. 

The book is issued under the auspices of the Japanese 
Society and contains an introduction by Lindsay Russell, 
President of the Society. It gives first-hand information 
as to present conditions in Japan, as to the ideals and 
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peaceful relations with the United States. 

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Deutschland Uber AUes 

Or Germany Speaks 

A Collection of the Utterances of Representative 
Germans — Statesmen, Military Leaders, Scholars, and 
Poets— in Defence of the War Policies of the Fatherland. 

Compiled and Analyzed by 

John Jay Chapman 

i6°. 75c 



Alsace and Lorraine 

From Caesar to Kaiser. 58 B.C.-1871 A.D. 

A sketch of the political affiliations of the provinces 
before the creation of the Reichsland of Elsass- 
Lothringen. 

By Ruth Putnam 

Author of " A Mediaeval Princess," " Charles the Bold," 
" William the Silent," etc. 

mth Eight Maps, 8°. $125 

Alsace — Romans, Gauls, and Others on the Soil of 
Alsace — The Treaties of Verdun and Other Pacts Affect- 
ing Alsace — The Dream of a Middle Kingdom — The 
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Thirty Years of War and the Peace of Westphalia — Louis 
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Treitschke 

I2\ $1.50 

The Writings of Bernhardi's Teacher, 

Heinrich von Treitschke, Together 

with a Life, by His Close 

Friend, Adolf Hausrath 

The works of this great German historian 
have shaped the present policy of Germany in 
its attempt to secure a dominating influence in 
Europe and throughout the world. The follow- 
ing is a brief summary of the subjects presented 
in this distinctive work : 

I. Treitschke's Life and Work, by Adolf 
Hausrath. 2. TlieArmy. 3. International Law. 
4. German Colonization. 5. The Two Emperors. 
6. In Memory of the Great War. 7. Germany 
and the Neutral States. 8. Austria and the 
German Emperor. 9. Russia from the German 
Point of View. 10. On Liberty. 

Treitschke was a close friend of Bismarck, and 
his list of pupils include the political and military 
leaders of the present generation, such as the 
Emperor William, Bernhardi, and others. 

Lord Acton says of Treitschke: "He is the 
one writer of history who is more brilliant and 
more powerful than Droysen; and he writes 
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen, 
but he concerns himself with the problems of 
the present day, problems that are still demand- 
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The Real 
"Truth About Germany *' 

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By Douglas Sladen 

Author of " Egypt and the English," etc. 
With an Appendix 

Great Britain and the War 

By A. Maurice Low, M.A. 

Author of " The American People," etc. 

300 pages, 12°, Cloth $100 

Mr. Sladen has taken as his text a pamphlet which, while not 
formally published, has been widely circulated in the United Statesj 
entitled The Truth About Germany. This pamphlet was prepared 
in Germany under the supervision of a Committee of Repre- 
sentative Germans, and may fairly be described as the "official 
justification of the War." Care has been taken to prevent copies 
from finding their way into England, which has caused Mr. Sladen 
to describe the pamphlet as The Secret White Paper. He has taken 
up one by one the statements of the German writers, and has 
shown how little foundation most of these statements have and 
how misleading are others which contain some element of truth. 
In answering the German statements, Mr. Sladen has naturally 
taken the opportunity to state clearly the case of England. England 
claims that it was impossible to avoid going into this struggle if 
it was to keep faith with and fulfill its obligations to Belgium 
and Luxemburg. Apart from this duty, it is the conviction of 
England, that it is fighting not only in fulfillment of obligations 
and to prevent France from being crushed for a second time, but 
for self-preservation. The German threat has been made openly 
" first Paris, then London." 

In order that the case for England may be complete, the pub- 
lishers have added an essay by the well-known historian, A. Maurice 
Low. As the title. Great Britain and the War, indicates, England's 
attitude toward the great conflict is clearly portrayed, and her 
reasons for joining therein are ably presented. 

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The Evidence in 
the Case 

In the Supreme Court of 
Civilization 

The Case of The Dual Alliance rs> The Triple Entente 

By 
James M. Beck 

Late Assistant Attorney-General of the U. S. 

/2^ $1.00 

In this volume the scholarly author sums up, 
speaking as a judge in a world's court of abso- 
lute impartiality, the causation of the present 
European War and the relative responsibilities 
of the nations that are parties to the War. The 
author's verdict is based upon the official docu- 
ments in the case, and these documents are 
presented in the original text as an appendix to 
the argument. 

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